


when the sun came up, you were looking at me

by heartsinsync



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Adorable group dynamics! Yay! Kickass female friendships! Double yay!, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Pretty much all the tension tbh, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:56:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3257402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsinsync/pseuds/heartsinsync
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Octavia’s urging, Clarke moves into Bellamy’s apartment. Snark, silliness and sexy times ensue.</p><p>(Or, the roomies AU you totally knew you wanted.)</p><p>[ Winner of the <a href="http://bellarkefanfictionawards.tumblr.com/post/123120253717/congratulations-lydia-martin-heartsinsync-on">Best Roommates Fiction category</a> for the Bellarke Fanfiction Awards 2015 ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon!Bellarke is a gaping hole of misery right now which is why ModernAU!Bellarke is here to save our souls!!!
> 
> Title from Taylor Swift's 'Out Of The Woods' (so Bellarke it hurts).
> 
> This is dedicated to the lovely [Morgan](http://intostarlight.tumblr.com), who cries with me literally every single day over this life-ruining duo. I love you but I also hate you for introducing me to these two idiots the first place. NOTHIN' YOU DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW BB xoxo

The funny thing, Clarke mused in hindsight, was that it had all originally been Octavia’s idea.

“Come on, Clarke!” O had wheedled, that fateful (or, at the time, utterly ordinary and uneventful) Tuesday morning. “You need a place to live, my brother needs a housemate, and all the people he’s interviewed so far have been completely crazy. Like creepily-collect-antique-china-dolls or practice-taxidermy-in-their-spare-time kind of crazy. It’s perfect!”

Clarke had paused in her perusal of potential apartments online to frown quizzically at her friend. “I don’t know, O. I mean, I barely even know him. Wouldn’t it be kind of… weird?”

Octavia gave Clarke the kind of look that somehow managed to encompass an eye roll and a light punch to the shoulder all at once. What could she say, the girl had an expressive face. “No, it wouldn’t. That makes it even _more_ perfect, don’t you see? You should never actually be good friends with anyone you live with, not to start with anyway.”

Clarke must have looked sceptical, because Octavia did roll her eyes then. “It’s true! All you end up doing is squabbling over stupid household admin and picking on each other’s bad habits, and then the friendship’s ruined. Just trust me on this one.”

She jumped off the couch in Clarke’s living room to join her at the kitchen table, swivelling the laptop around to face her and ignoring Clarke’s protesting ‘hey!’. “Have you even found any good prospects? I know the rent thing’s not an issue, obviously, but what about location? Rooms? Non-psycho housemates?”

O’s smile was playful with only a hint of a smirk, which was how Clarke knew not to take offense at the jibe about rent money. When they’d first met at Ark University in freshman year, during an elective art class that Octavia had eventually dropped and Clarke had persisted with until her pre-med workload had doubled, then tripled, they’d gotten on like a house on fire, despite being from “polar opposite worlds” in Octavia’s words. Clarke had been quiet, clever and hard-working, fresh from one of the most prestigious private high schools in the country, her noticeably privileged upbringing sticking out like a sore thumb.

Octavia, for her part, had also stood out, though for different reasons. With her sharp tongue, stunning good looks and slight air of unpredictability, as well as a mysterious past she kept firmly under wraps, boys and girls alike had been infatuated with her.

So as much as she’d liked her upon their first acquaintance, Clarke hadn’t been sure they’d remain close. They were, as Octavia had pointed out, wildly different, with clashing class schedules and lifestyles, and while they were certainly chummy the one day a week they saw each other at art class, Clarke had barely seen O outside in the real world that first year of college. But Octavia had surprised her in sophomore year, keeping in close touch with her and demanding weekly coffee and drinks dates to make up for their lack of class time together. As it turned out, she was a fiercely loyal friend, and once she cared about you, nothing stopped her from involving herself inextricably in your life.

Which meant, as Clarke was now remembering, sticking her nose into all your personal affairs, living situation included.

“I haven’t found many options,” Clarke admitted, to answer Octavia’s question. Being subjected to O’s Serious Stare meant there was no room for lying or evasion. “But it’s early days. Monroe only just told me her cousin’s moving in a few days ago, so there’s still time.”

Octavia raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t the cousin coming in like two weeks though? Bit rude of her not to let you know earlier, to be honest.”

Clarke shrugged. It had irritated her too, but it was Monroe’s apartment after all, so what could she do about it? “Yeah, I don’t know – it was a family emergency or something, so I didn’t want to ask. But in any case, I’ve got a fortnight to go so I’ll just… cram in a lot of applications and interviews.” She hauled a convincing smile onto her face. “It’ll be fine! I’m sure something will pop up.”

Octavia looked as if she didn’t believe it, but was nicely refraining from saying so. “Okay, Clarke. But if you don’t find anything in a week will you _please_ consider checking out Bellamy’s place? It’s so close to campus, and besides, it’s an amazing apartment. I really think you’d like it, and I’m not just saying that because it’ll be ideal for me to be able to visit you both at the same time.”

Clarke had to laugh at Octavia’s cheeky grin. “Alright, alright. I’m not making any promises but if I get desperate, I’ll think about it. But,” she shot Octavia a meaningful look, “only if you don’t bug me about it every two seconds until then. Okay?”

Octavia jumped up from her kitchen stool, eyes sparkling. “Of course! My lips are sealed. Now can we please go? I’m starving and those chocolate chip pancakes at Grounders have my name written all over them.” She picked up her purse and headed towards the front door, head cocked back towards Clarke. “Coming?”

Clarke nodded, pausing only to cast her eye quickly over the list of numbers and addresses on her laptop screen. She really hadn’t been kidding earlier; the few apartment prospects she did have were abysmal. Clarke didn’t consider herself a particularly high-maintenance girl, but considering how intense her studies were this year and how much of a haven her bedroom represented, one of the things she absolutely refused to compromise on was her living space.

Unfortunately, most of the apartments currently available in the vicinity of the college were nightmare-inducing, housemates aside. With their cramped rooms, dim lighting and dubious cleanliness – the latter of which, Clarke thought darkly, did not reflect well on the living habits of the current inhabitants – her options were depressingly low. Which meant that, as awkward as it would inevitably be, she really might have to take O up on her offer to look into the elder Blake’s apartment.

Clarke sighed, then closed her laptop screen and followed Octavia out the door, resolving to worry further about the situation only after inhaling a double helping of pancakes.

 

* * *

 

Octavia, as it turned out, was completely right on both counts. No new apartments had cropped up over the next fortnight (“no new apartments that meet your exacting standards, you mean,” Raven had pointed out with a wry grin), and Bellamy’s apartment _was_ amazing – almost unbelievably so.

“How did he even get this place?” Clarke hissed in an incredulous undertone to Octavia. Raven, who’d come along for the ride, was checking out the living space and peering into the different rooms, making noises of approval. “Seriously, a loft apartment so close to campus? God, it must be costing him a fortune.”

She felt a slight sense of misgiving the second the words left her and bit her lip. Though they’d been friends for years and she knew O didn’t give a toss, she still felt bad whenever she alluded to the other girl’s background and her family’s money problems, knowing how private O was about such matters.

They’d had gotten drunk on those horrible raspberry vodka mixers that came in a can one night in freshman year, and the whole story had come out – how much Octavia’s brother had sacrificed for her wellbeing, how hard it had been for him to get custody of her after their mother had passed away, how he’d had to work various dead-end jobs for years while studying to support the both of them. It had astonished and awed Clarke at the time, imagining a struggling teenager with a frightened young sister suddenly and unceremoniously thrust into the cruel world of adult responsibilities. And though she knew it was irrational, it caused Clarke to feel guilty and ashamed whenever she thought back on her more-than-comfortable upbringing.

But O just waved an airy hand, looking warm and proud all at once; an expression she wore often when she spoke of Bellamy. “Actually, he bought it for a song from the previous owner when he moved back here for the assistant prof position. It was this hideous run down mess that no-one wanted – practically a death trap, you know. But then he spent all summer toiling away and fixing it up and, well, here we are.”

“Still good with his hands, I see,” Raven remarked, her lips twisting wickedly as she moved to sprawl across the couch. She ducked, laughing, when Octavia leaned over to throw a pillow at her head. “Sorry! Just kidding. Water under the bridge, and all that.”

O snorted. “I’d hope so, considering it was one night _three_ years ago. Though I’m still not over the trauma of hearing you talk about it. That’s my brother, after all.”

She shuddered dramatically, before turning to shoot Clarke a teasing look over her shoulder. “So what’s the verdict, huh? Does it meet your requirements, oh pedantic one?”

Clarke, being the mature adult she was, simply stuck her tongue out, receiving two wide smirks from O and Raven in response. But when she looked around her, her gaze alighting on the high ceilings and sprawling floor space, her face grew serious. “Yeah, you could say that,” she finally murmured, running her hand along the gleaming kitchen counter.

Clarke didn’t know what she’d expected when she’d called O up and asked her, with a hint of embarrassment, if she could drop in to see Bellamy’s apartment. She figured that if it was a decent enough space, she’d take it into consideration alongside the other two apartments she’d seen that week that had sucked the least.

But she could never have anticipated this incredible airy loft, with its two enormous bedrooms and open plan lounge and kitchen. Not to mention, a bathroom with an actual _bath._ She was already giddily planning hour-long soaks. Plus, if there was anything Clarke was a sucker for, it was natural lighting, and with its distinctly wide windows Bellamy’s loft certainly had that in bucket-loads. Clarke’s fingers itched to get out her sketchbook and start drawing.

She’d gone from idly thinking of this apartment as just a vague possibility, to really, really, _really_ wanting to live here.

Goddamnit. Octavia was going to be so smug.

Clarke sighed and turned to face the other two girls, who were predictably wearing twin expressions of mingled triumph and amusement.

“You love it, don’t you?” Raven asked slyly.

“Yes,” Clarke muttered, prompting an outbreak of laughter from her friends. “But I’m not happy about it,” she added grumpily.

“Not happy about what?” came a deep male voice, followed by the sound of the front door closing.

Clarke swung around, and came face to face with one Bellamy Blake.

“Huh?” she said intelligently, staring at him.

_Well. Fuck._

“Bellamy!” Octavia cried happily, bouncing over to give her brother an enthusiastic hug. Raven waved lazily from the couches where she was comfortably reclined. “Good timing, big brother. We were just showing Clarke around.”

His eyes (dark, brown, amused) hadn’t left hers. She swallowed, then made an effort to look away. What was wrong with her?

“Ah,” he said, his voice rich with something she couldn’t decipher. “So this is the princess.”

At that, Clarke shot him a bewildered glare. “What?”

“Just ignore him,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes and nudging her brother with an elbow. She dropped a set of keys into his hand. “Bellamy, be nice. This could very well be your new housemate. Actually, scratch that, this _will_ be your new housemate. I won’t take no for an answer.”

O gave Clarke a warm smile, a co-conspirator’s smile, which she returned, before wandering back over to talk to Raven. Bellamy, however, just made an indistinct humming noise as he slung his bag onto the kitchen counter, then shrugged out of his jacket.

Clarke was not looking at where his top had ridden up over his jeans, she was not, she was _not_.

“So how do you like the place?” he addressed her suddenly, causing her eyes to shoot up to his face. “O tells me you can be a little fussy, so.”

He grinned, eyes crinkling up at the corners, but Clarke ignored the warmth there, bristling instead at the comment.

“I’m not fussy, just… careful,” she said, slightly defensive. “And I think you know very well your apartment is amazing.”

Bellamy shrugged one shoulder elegantly, the picture of indifference. “It does the job. But you’re the one who needs a place to stay, so you tell me.”

In the past, whenever Clarke had thought about what Bellamy Blake would be like (which in all honestly, wasn’t often – after all, for the first two and half years of her and O’s friendship, he’d been away getting his Master’s in Chicago, a distant figure hovering on the periphery of their conversations), she’d imagined someone completely different. Someone warm, approachable, paternal. At least, that was what Octavia had made him sound like.

She certainly hadn’t imagined this Bellamy – cool and aloof, and so… so… _smirky_. Just the way he looked at her made her feel on edge, weirdly hot and cold at the same time. It was a ridiculous sensation to have upon meeting someone for the first time, Clarke knew, but she felt it strongly all the same.

She took a deep breath and made a concentrated effort to sound equally casual. “It’s a great place – exactly what I’m looking for, really. Octavia’s run me through everything, the rent and electricity and internet, and I’m fine with all of it. If you need my references and so on, I’ve got them here with me. So I’d be happy to move in as soon as possible…”

Clarke looked up and caught Bellamy’s eye again, faltering momentarily, before forging onward.

“…If you’ll, you know, have me.”

She could feel herself blushing, which annoyed her to no end. There was no reason whatsoever to be embarrassed, but her stupid fair skin clearly hadn’t gotten the memo. Clarke knew he had to have noticed, but she refused to drop his unwavering gaze to acknowledge this until he answered her.    

“Well?” she prompted.

He studied her for another long drawn out second, before his lips quirked slightly upwards in assent.

“Sounds good to me. And don’t worry about those,” Bellamy waved a dismissive hand at her when she proffered her referring documents, “O’s vouched for you so that’s all I need to know.”

“So… that’s it?” Clarke said blankly, staring at her references. “I’m in?”

He shot her an amused smirk. “You’re in, princess,” he assured, picking up his bag from the counter and heading towards his room. “You can move in whenever you like, just give me a day or two’s heads up.”

Frowning slightly at the repeated use of the nickname, Clarke turned to see what Octavia and Raven thought of this rapid turn of events, before realising they’d switched on the widescreen TV to an episode of _The Mount Weather Project_ (the trashy reality dating show they were both addicted to). Consequently, they hadn’t been paying Bellamy and Clarke the slightest bit of attention.

She startled when something warm touched her hand, and looked up to see that Bellamy had returned. He was much closer than she’d realised, practically looming over her, really. His head was inclined down towards her, curly dark hair inches away from her face. Clarke could’ve counted all the tiny star-like freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks.

If, you know, she was into that sort of thing. Which she wasn’t.

“You’ll probably need these,” he said, dropping the apartment keys into her palm. The warmth of his hand seeped through to hers; it confused her, and she moved her own hand away quickly.

“Thanks,” Clarke muttered, closing her fingers over the keys. She made sure to only look up again once Bellamy had retreated into his room, and it seemed safe to do so.

She’d found a new apartment, it was even more than she could’ve hoped for, and O was beyond thrilled. This was a good thing, right?

Shaking off her slight air of unease, and the still lingering sensation of Bellamy’s hand on hers, Clarke moved to join her friends.

 

* * *

 

Clarke had always thought she was rather sensible when it came to the things she spent money on. A girl of moderate means, so to speak. Sure, her family was wealthy and had always sought to give her the best of everything, but when it came to personal possessions, she’d never thought she needed much to get by.

That was until she had to move into Bellamy’s loft, of course.

It turned out Clarke had stuff. A lot of stuff. Stuff that she couldn’t for the life of her remember buying, or even remember owning, full stop. “An excessive amount of crap,” you might say – or at least, that was how Raven eloquently put it.

“Seriously, Clarke!” the latter girl exclaimed, hauling the last of Clarke’s boxes (this one filled to the brim with old medical textbooks, electrical equipment and the odd bit of crockery) into the foyer of the loft. “What the hell is all this shit? Do you really need–” she paused to inspect a couple of the items perched precariously near the top of the box “–an iron _and_ a steamer?”

Clarke, who had spent the last two days in a constant frenzy of motion packing up her life, was feeling rather harassed. She shot Raven a dark look through her waves of blonde hair.

“You know how my mom feels about wrinkly clothes, okay? It’s apparently not ‘appropriate’ or ‘polite’ or whatever the fuck adjective she wants to use that day to try and provoke me into a full blown argument.” She blew out a heavy sigh and slumped back against the banister of the stairs.

Raven grinned, dropping the side of the box and moving over to sling an arm around Clarke’s shoulder. “Chill out, Doc. No need to have a conniption. I guess I just never really picked you for the sentimental type. Hoarders are sentimental, right?”

Clarke frowned slightly, forehead creasing. “What are you talking about? I’m sentimental. I cried when we rewatched Titanic the other day, didn’t I?”

Raven eyeballed her. “Dude, _everyone_ cries during Titanic. If you don’t cry during that movie, you’re a heartless bitch.”

Giggling, Clarke leaned down to pick up the cardboard box nearest to her, only just managing not to stumble under its incredible weight. “So hey, I’m gonna go ahead and unlock the door, and then I’ll come back down to grab all this stuff. Are you okay to wait here?”

At Raven’s nod, she proceeded up the stairs. It was slow going; the loft was only on the second floor of the building, but the staircase was the annoyingly winding kind that turned several corners, and by the time Clarke reached the top she was once again sweaty and breathless.

Cramming the keys into the lock, she called out cautiously, “Uh… Bellamy?”

Silence greeted her, so Clarke shrugged and picked up the box again, entering the loft with her back carefully braced against the door. She started towards the kitchen on the right, struggling to balance the weight of her load and steer clear of any obstacles, and that was when she saw him.

_Crash._

“Fuck!”

His back had been turned to her, but Bellamy swivelled around immediately at the sound of her voice, the alertness on his face shifting to surprise, then recognition. He yanked his earphones out, depositing them onto the counter alongside his phone. “Clarke?”

Clarke, having dropped immediately to the ground to pick up the various items that had rolled away, looked up at him.

This was a mistake.

The good news was that Bellamy was just as sweaty and dishevelled as she was, if not more so.

The bad news was that it looked good on him. Really, really good, to be exact.

Also, he was completely shirtless. Hence the _crash_ , and the violent cursing.

Clarke swallowed and looked down, concentrating on putting her things back where they belonged. “Um, hey. Sorry, I called out but didn’t hear anyone answer.”

Bellamy was running a hand through his hair, which was even messier and curlier than it had been the other day. Sweat glistened on his chest and torso, his skin bronze in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen windows. “Yeah, sorry about that – just came back from a run and had my music turned up pretty loud. Do you need help with that, by the way?”

He started to kneel down beside her, but halted abruptly at Clarke’s panicked “No!”

“I mean,” Clarke said, after an awkward pause, “No, thank you. Raven’s downstairs so I’m sure between the two of us, we can manage.” She offered him a pacifying smile.

Bellamy straightened up, still looking at her. There was a teasing glint in his eye and Clarke suspected he was secretly laughing at her, but whatever. Anything to keep that – that – _nakedness_ away from her.

“If you say so,” he finally said, backing away towards his room with his hands slightly in the air. His smile was approaching a smirk. “And hey, Clarke.”

She turned to look at him. “Yes?”

He was definitely smirking now, which made Clarke pretty sure he’d pinpointed the real reason for her frazzled state. She flushed.

“Welcome to the neighbourhood.”

 

* * *

 

When Clarke reappeared in the foyer two seconds later, Raven looked up with a half-bemused, half-irritated expression. “Finally! God, what took you so long?”

“Nothing. I mean, I dropped the box so I had to pick everything up, but. Nothing.”

Raven eyed her friend closely, taking in her tense shoulders and agitated face. “You’re bright red. Are you okay? What did Bellamy do to you?”

“Nothing!” Clarke exclaimed, slightly louder than she meant to. “Can we just move all this stuff, please?”

Raven grinned knowingly, but all she said was, “Fine by me. Let’s go.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is really consuming my life right now (seriously, I'm having dreams about it and everything) so I hope you enjoyed this first snippet. If you leave comments/reviews I will love you forever, like as much as Bellamy Blake loves Clarke Griffin which as you know is a LOT, a big fat lot of love. Plus the feedback helps me to write faster, and better!!!
> 
> Unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine. I apologise if any of my Americanisms are incorrect, in this chapter or future ones.
> 
> (I'm [lydia-martin](http://lydia-martin.tumblr.com) on tumblr, by the way - come play!)


	2. Chapter 2

This is what Clarke discovers in the first few months of living with Bellamy Blake:

 

1\. He’s popular with the ladies.

Well, it’s not exactly a surprise. Clarke could’ve guessed that in a heartbeat, based on the whole tall dark stranger thing (she refuses to think of him as handsome) and the _muscles_ and well, yeah. She can see how he might be appealing to some people.

It’s become something of a regular occurrence, particularly on weekends. Clarke’s always up bright and early (she’s a morning person, always has been, even before she had 8am Statistical Physics classes to get to on Mondays), so she’s usually enjoying her first coffee of the day or making a start on breakfast whenever the girl – it’s almost always a different one – tiptoes out of Bellamy’s room to either use the bathroom or beat a hasty retreat.

It’s gotten to a point where now, Clarke will usually just smile and say hi to try and ease the awkwardness of the situation. Once, Bellamy had emerged from his cave, eyes still blurry from sleep, to find his latest bed partner sipping on a latte that Clarke had made for her, the two girls chatting merrily away while Clarke pottered around the kitchen scrambling eggs.

He hadn’t seemed bothered by it until the girl had left, all bright eyes and hopeful smiles. Then he’d turned on his heel to level his gaze at Clarke, who ignored him until she felt like she couldn’t any longer, after he’d been staring at her for a good thirty seconds straight.

“What?” she said impatiently.

“What was that?”

Clarke frowned. “What – me being friendly to one of your admirers?”

Bellamy narrowed his gaze. “Exactly. Don’t do it, please.”

Clarke bristled. “Why not? I’m just being nice. She asked if she could have a glass of water, I offered her a coffee. What’s the big deal?”

His eyebrows had risen up to his hairline. Clarke hated it when they did that; that particular expression of his always made her feel defensive, and irritated with it.

“Because I don’t want her to get any ideas, that’s why. So can you try to refrain from being so nice? 

Clarke scowled, gripping the spatula in her fist. She longed to toss it at his head, _hard_ , but she’d found from previous experience (and to her own detriment) that he had lightning-fast reflexes so it was a definite no-go. “God, you’re an ass.”

“I aim to please, princess,” he said lazily.

 

2\. The whole princess thing wasn’t a one-time fluke.

Clarke didn’t know where the nickname had cropped up from (what had Octavia been telling him before they’d met?) but he used it practically every opportunity he could, and seemed to take an almost obscene amount of delight in her annoyance.

At this point, she’d given up arguing and simply suffered it with bad grace, but still found herself gritting her teeth whenever he inevitably referred to her as ‘princess’ around their friends or in public. The worst part was that the girls seemed to condone it; Octavia found the whole thing adorable and Raven seemed to think it was hilarious.

“He’s just looking to get a rise out of you, you know,” O said wisely, one Saturday afternoon when they were at the mall browsing through the newest influx of summer clothes. “If you stop reacting, he’ll stop teasing you.”

“Yeah, well,” Clarke grumbled, flipping through racks of dresses without properly looking at any of them, “easier said than done.”

Octavia and Raven shared a look of well-worn exasperation. They were too used to Clarke ranting about Bellamy by now for it to have much effect.

And speaking of which–

 

3\. They fight like cats and dogs.

It’s weird. Clarke remembers feeling kind of, well, nervous around Bellamy for the first couple of weeks after she moved in. It was odd getting used to all the rhythms of living with a new person. Clarke had lived with Monroe for almost two years, and while they’d never been the closest of friends, they’d grown very comfortable around each other.

But Bellamy wasn’t just a new acquaintance; he was a wild card in his own right, and Clarke, who was never at her best adjusting to any type of change, was uneasy in the loft during those early days. 

Of course, that was before she came to the profound realisation that Bellamy Blake was _the most irritating person alive_.

He was stubborn as an ox, and about the most insignificant, inexplicable matters – the whole not-being-nice-to-girls-he’d-slept-with thing, for instance. He was tidy in some ways (he cleaned up after himself in the kitchen, thank god – Clarke didn’t know if she could’ve handled tottering piles of dirty dishes), but then hideously messy in others (his books and clothes were all over the goddamn living room and he refused to put them away). He was extremely punctual when it came to paying bills and meeting any kind of official deadline, but always late in person, casually strolling in half an hour after the fact as if he wasn’t wasting anyone else’s time ( _Clarke’s_ time, which was very precious, thank you very much). And he clearly had no idea what it was like living with someone who wasn’t related to him, aka someone who wasn’t genetically programmed to take any of his bullshit, leaving Clarke fuming whenever he’d just smirk and snark and smarm his way out of any important conversations he didn’t want to have.

It drove Clarke crazy. _He_ drove Clarke crazy.

“So why don’t you just move out?” Raven had interrupted once, when Clarke had, as was her custom, really riled herself up complaining about Bellamy’s latest transgression. “I swear, you two are worse than my parents before they got divorced. And that’s really saying something.”

Clarke sighed, suddenly deflating. “I’ve asked myself the same thing, to be honest. But I really like the loft – it’s the best place I’ve lived in since I moved out of home. And I mean, it’s not _so_ bad. I always make it sound worse than it is, I guess. He just… bugs me so much sometimes, I don’t know.” She looked guiltily at her two friends. “I’m sorry you guys have to listen to me complain about him all the time. Especially you, O – he is your brother after all.”

Octavia opened her mouth to say something, but Raven directed a meaningful look her way, and she seemed to change her words on the spot.

“It’s fine, Clarke,” O said quickly, shooting her blonde friend a sympathetic smile. “It’s Bellamy, so I get it. Hell, he gets on my last nerve every week too, and I don’t even have to live with him any more.”

“Oh yeah!” Clarke said happily, seemingly distracted from her previous bad mood. “How are things going with Lincoln, by the way? We’ll have to organise a big catch up with him soon.”

Octavia’s smile widened. “Things are going great, actually. His housemates are so cool, the apartment’s awesome, and, you know. We’re doing really well.”

She looked very slightly embarrassed; O had never been one to wax on about her romantic life in depth. But Raven and Clarke could see how happy she was, and both their faces softened. O deserved someone amazing, especially after her traumatic break-up with her last boyfriend Atom. And though Lincoln certainly looked intimidating at first glance (Clarke may or may not have been a tad scared upon meeting him initially), it was clear he absolutely worshipped the ground Octavia walked on.

“That’s amazing news, O,” Clarke said warmly, Raven smiling beside her.  
  
Octavia cleared her throat and brushed a strand of long dark hair out of her face. “Okay, enough about me and my boring domestic life. What about you two?” Her face grew mischievous and she waggled her eyebrows. “Any hot new boys on the go? Hopefully not the same one.”  
  
She pulled a mock-agonised face, causing Raven and Clarke to burst into laughter. A year ago Octavia wouldn’t have dared make the same joke, and even six months earlier would have been too soon (Clarke would have looked away immediately and Raven's reaction would have been a brittle smile). But they’d finally reached a point where they were able to shrug it off and laugh over the terrible, idiotic luck of falling in love with the same boy, and Clarke couldn't have been more grateful. Having Raven as a friend was infinitely more precious to her than any boyfriend; it sounded corny but was true.  
  
“There’s a hot new guy wandering around the Mechanical Engineering department,” Raven said abruptly, fiddling with the straw in her drink.  
  
Clarke and Octavia exchanged expressions of surprise and delight. While Clarke had casually dated (read: had rebound flings with) a few guys after The Finn Collins Disaster of freshman year, Raven had barely expressed any real interest in anyone since then. Though that certainly hadn’t stopped a few boys from trying their luck. Raven had had to shoot them down quickly when the ‘fuck off’ vibes she naturally emanated hadn’t deterred the more persistent among them.  
  
“So, who is it?” Octavia exclaimed, at the same time as Clarke asked, “What is he like?”  
  
Raven looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Scruffy,” she said finally.  
  
“Scruffy?” O repeated, wrinkling her nose. “I hope that's your answer to Clarke’s question and not mine.”

That got a grin out of Raven. 

“It was,” she said. “His name’s Wick. He's…” she paused, starting to frown a little. “–not really my type, to be honest.”  
  
“That’s a good thing,” Octavia said pointedly. “Your last type was asshole.”  
  
“That’s true,” Raven acknowledged, tilting her head in consideration.  
  
“I think it’s usually good when it’s the person who you don’t expect,” Octavia mused. “Like the one you who strikes you out of the blue. Or who challenges you in a different way to other people. Kind of… broadens your horizons, so to speak. I feel like you learn more about yourself that way.” She shrugged a shoulder.  
  
Raven rolled her eyes good-humouredly. “Easy for you to say,” she teased, using her straw to flick drops of her drink at O. “We can’t all spontaneously find love in our kickboxing classes.”

O’s lips twisted into a playful smile. “But wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if you could?” 

Clarke was silent. It had been a long week and she’d had a few drinks, that was all. That was the only reason why Bellamy’s face had flashed briefly in her mind at Octavia’s words. That, and she hadn’t had sex in a really long time and there were certainly no dating prospects on the horizon and he was the only male she saw on a regular basis and in extremely close quarters, at that. So yeah, that kind of made sense and _god_ she was feeling exhausted, it’d been a killer week and she’d had a few drinks, had she mentioned that she’d had a few drinks?

“Clarke?” 

“Huh?” she said automatically. 

“You okay there?”

O and Raven were both peering at her, looking amused and only a tad concerned.

“Yeah, of course,” Clarke said quickly, with a bright smile. “Just gonna grab another round. What can I get you guys?”

 

4\. He reads. A lot.

More than anyone else Clarke has ever met before, and she’d dated a rather pretentious English Major early in sophomore year who prided himself a little too much on how varied his reading “portfolio” was. (What a dickhead, Clarke thought in amusement. Thank God she came to her senses so quickly and dumped him.)

But Bellamy’s so-called reading portfolio, if he ever cared to collate such a thing, was almost bizarrely diverse. After all, he did leave his things messily sprawled all over their communal living space, so Clarke usually caught a glimpse of whatever his current reading material was. So far, she hadn’t managed to detect any rhyme or reason whatsoever in regards to his tastes.

Was it possible he was interested in _everything_? 

He seemed to have a liking for theoretical books, particularly those rooted in philosophy, psychology or sociology. He favoured the long-winded essays of a handful of fairly pompous-sounding French and American literary journalists, none of whom Clarke had ever heard of before. And he also had a passing interest in molecular biology and organic chemistry, if those times she came home to find him randomly absorbed in one of her course textbooks were anything to go by.

And when it came to fiction, Bellamy wasn’t one to discriminate. Detective mysteries, modern fantasy novels, classics (everything from Jane Austen to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Jack Kerouac), thrillers of the dystopian and science fiction variety, nineteenth and twentieth-century poetry (he was particularly fond of Gertrude Stein), reimagined fables and fairy tales (Angela Carter’s _The Bloody Chamber_ made a few appearances) and on one memorable occasion, even freaking Chaucer; Bellamy apparently read them all. She’d spotted a couple texts from these genres floating around the loft at different times.

Clarke didn’t know how someone with the attention span of a gnat when it came to girls could force himself to get through The Canterbury Tales. In the _original Middle English_ , no less. It was one of the truly more baffling things in life.

The only other things he read that she was actually interested in were the books on mythology. O had filled Clarke in on the origins of ‘Octavia’, seemingly very proud of the fact that her big brother had named her, and she’d also once mentioned in passing that Bellamy had written his Master’s thesis on Greek mythology.

Which was how that same thesis had happened to catch Clarke’s eye one evening. She’d been procrastinating studying for an exam the next day, looking for her sketchpad, and there it was, buried under an untidy pile of books on the dining table: _The Hero:_ _Futility and Grandeur of Existence Within Human Limitations in Archaic Greek Myth._ *

An hour later, Bellamy came home to find Clarke deeply engrossed in his work. 

“Hey, princess.”

“Oh, Bellamy. Hey.” Startled, Clarke dropped the thesis, then subtly shifted away from it. She was suddenly feeling a little awkward. “You’re home early.”

“Yeah, it was pretty slow at the bar today.” He gave her a strange look. “Were you just reading my thesis?”

“Maybe,” Clarke said, keeping her voice purposely light. She made a noncommittal gesture. “It’s good.”

Bellamy’s lips quirked. “Oh, you think so?” He left his jacket on the coat rack by the front door and moved to lounge on the couch beside her, stretching his legs out with a sigh.

“So. Are you… interested?”

Clarke turned to look at him quickly. “What?” 

There was something sly about the curve of his mouth, something that made her stomach clench up very slightly just looking at him. “In mythology, I mean.”

Clarke relaxed. “Oh, yeah – of course. I’m not really familiar with a lot of the Greek gods and heroes you mentioned there, but it’s still fascinating.”

Bellamy smiled then, one of his rare real smiles – all dimple, no hint of a smirk. It made him look subtly different; younger almost, his face suffused with sudden warmth.

“Well, what do you want to know?”

That’s how it starts. It becomes a tradition of sorts, after a while. Sometimes when they’re just hanging out in the evenings, one of them cooking and the other shooting the breeze, or when they’re both hideously hungover on Sunday mornings and can’t be bothered moving an inch, they’ll talk Greek mythology. She makes him tell her about Prometheus, the trickster who suffered eternal punishment from Zeus for introducing fire to mankind; Cassandra, gifted the power of prophecy by Apollo but, upon her refusal of his advances, also the curse of never being believed; Ariadne, who fell in love with Theseus and helped him to defeat the Minotaur, only to be abandoned by him on the shores of Naxos.**

She’d never dream of telling him, of course, but it quickly becomes one of Clarke’s favourite pastimes. Bellamy has such an innate talent for storytelling, particularly when he’s passionate about his subject, and his voice is, quite simply, beautiful. Deep and husky, always resonating perfectly, his quiet laugh like a dark secret.

She gets shivers sometimes, just listening to him.

 

5\. His friends are absolute sweethearts.

Though she doesn’t find that out for some time, actually.

After Clarke had well and truly settled in, Octavia and Raven got into the habit of treating the loft like their second home. Clarke couldn’t count how many times she’d walked in from class to find them setting up camp in the lounge preparing for a movie marathon (without her knowledge or consent, of course), or the number of nights she’d passed out after long in-depth chats with the two of them snugly spooning her in her enormous queen size bed. 

It looked like Bellamy only bore their presence grudgingly – he was always complaining about all the hair in the bathroom or grumbling over them hogging the television – but Clarke knew he secretly lapped it up. Octavia was his darling baby sister, after all (there were normal siblings who were close, and then there were the Blake siblings; they were on another level, honestly) and he and Raven had always been on friendly terms (Clarke tried to avoid thinking about that one time they’d apparently gotten, uh, extra friendly). 

So from the get-go, the girls were always lounging around the place, whether or not Bellamy or Clarke were actually home. But for one reason or another, it was some time before Bellamy brought his friends around, which meant that Clarke didn’t get to meet them until her first month or two at the loft had passed.

Octavia, ever the social planner, had suggested having a cards and board games night so that the whole gang could be introduced. It’ll be nice and relaxed, she’d said, just some drinks and snacks and good company, a chance for everyone to get to know each other.

On the night, Clarke, who wasn’t usually a nervous person, was surprised to find herself feeling a little edgy.

“What’s wrong?” O asked, when she caught Clarke fussing over the refreshments for the third time. Bellamy had just sent through a txt; the boys were apparently fifteen minutes away. Lincoln was already with them at the loft, checking out the latest basketball scores on the television. “Stop worrying, they’re just Bellamy’s mates. And they’re really cool.”

Clarke nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she said with an discomfited smile, dropping the napkins and finally stepping away from the dining table. Even she couldn’t understand why she was so caught off-balance by the whole thing. Why did she even care what Bellamy’s friends thought of her? God, she needed to get a grip.

But as Clarke soon found out, Octavia was once again right (could she give it a rest for once? Clarke was tired of being the object of O’s smug I-told-you-so vibes). Bellamy’s friends _were_ cool, though in a different way to what Clarke had been expecting. She’d kind of thought his friends would be more like him: snarky, acerbic, vexing. But they were the complete opposite.

Jasper was – there were no other words for it – adorable. He fully tackled Clarke into a hug the second he met her, exclaiming, “Finally! We get to meet the girl who’s making Bellamy such a grump!”, which amused her to no end and which prompted a hilariously disgruntled sigh from Bellamy.

With his ever-constant chatter and excitable nature, Jasper kind of reminded Clarke of what having a younger brother would be like. He told Clarke that she was already his new favourite person, before moving on to devour half the refreshments table, an action for which Octavia would later loudly rebuke him.

Monty, Jasper’s best friend, was just as lovely but in a slightly less enthusiastic manner (which made sense; no one could be quite as enthusiastic as Jasper, after all). He waved shyly at Clarke when he met her, and the two of them would go on to spend a good portion of the night bonding over their studies, prompting collective moans and shouts of “you boring bastards” from the rest of the group.

Monty was some kind of super genius – not that he said anything of the like, humble as he was, but Clarke caught on pretty quickly – and while his major was Information Technology (or, as Jasper stage-whispered, “knowing how to code and hack into every website known to man”), he also dabbled in the sciences, particularly the various branches of Physics and Biology. Though she made sure not to tell anyone, Monty was Clarke’s secret favourite of the boys.

Nathan was Bellamy’s best friend, and though she knew that was his first name, all anyone ever referred to him as was Miller, so Clarke figured she’d better follow the group’s lead on that one. As she would later remark to O and Raven, Miller was probably the biggest surprise of the night; he was as quiet as Bellamy was outspoken, as level-headed as Bellamy was rash. 

It intrigued Clarke initially to think of the two of them being so close, considering how little they seemed to have in common, but then it all seemed to fall into place the longer she observed them. He and Bellamy were good for each other; they balanced each other out, and sometimes it made her come over all warm and fuzzy (though she’d die before admitting it) when she saw them engaged in their brutal, if good-natured, banter.

The games night was a hit, to O’s delight. The boys, though initially rather intimidated by him, ended up getting along great with Lincoln. Raven whooped everyone’s ass at poker, thanks to her superb poker face (which sent shock and awe through the group; they never even came close to guessing what her odds were each round), Miller won Clue in an astonishingly short amount of time (Clarke suspected he was a little _too_ good at reading people, and it made her kind of nervous for some reason), and Bellamy trounced them all at Scrabble – apart from Clarke of course, who put up a good fight.

In fact, the two of them spent a good deal of the night fighting over pretty much everything, from the rules of different games to what they should play next to whose turn it was to get the ice out of the fridge. By the end of the night, Jasper had taken to calling them Mom and Dad, which probably would have embarrassed Clarke had she been sober and in her right mind. But she wasn’t – she was kind of tipsy and Bellamy was just _so infuriating_. Ugh, just the sight of his stupid smug face and his stupid laughing eyes made her want to… want to… well. Smack that smirk right off, by any means possible.

“Well, I call that a great success,” O announced with satisfaction, once the boys had departed (with much loud singing and many hugs – Jasper kept coming back for more).

Lincoln was passed out in the armchair, exhausted from his day at work and the long night of socialising, and Octavia ran an affectionate hand over his head before collapsing on the couch herself. She turned her head to look expectantly at her friends.

“I think we should make this a regular thing – what do you say, guys?”

Raven made a sleepy noise of assent, already nodding off beside her. 

“You could always invite Wick,” O added casually.

That seemed to wake Raven up pretty quickly. She gave Octavia an exasperated look. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed, though it didn’t sound entirely convincing.

O shrugged, an innocent look on her face. “Just a suggestion. Right, Clarke?”

Clarke, distracted, took a second to respond. She’d been busy making a face at Bellamy, who had shot her a lazy smirk and a jokingly rude hand gesture on his way from the kitchen to his bedroom.

 

6\. He can be unexpectedly lovely.

Not often, Clarke hastens to admit to herself. But sometimes.

She came home from class one day after having spent the morning in a fevered daze, her head pounding and her throat constantly parched, no matter how much water she drank. Clarke had walked back to the loft on autopilot, her temperature off the charts, and pretty much collapsed on the couch in the living room.

She woke much later to find a damp towel on her forehead and a hand pressed gently to her cheek.

“Clarke,” a voice sighed. “Come on, princess. You have to wake up.”

She made an unintelligible noise, burrowing deeper into the couch. 

“Clarke.” The voice sounded stern now, and closer to her ear. She moaned a little. “Once you have these meds and drink this water, I promise you can go back to sleep. Okay?”

She considered it. Her head was still throbbing like crazy.

“Promise?” she mumbled.

The voice sounded as if it was trying not to laugh. “I promise.” 

Clarke opened one bleary eye, then the other, very slowly. The curtains had been drawn over the windows, making the loft very dim. She could make out the dark shapes of the television and Bellamy’s bedroom door in the background. Bellamy himself was crouched down in front of her, taking up the rest of her vision.

His face was very close to hers.

“Hey,” he murmured, leaning forward to slide his arm around her shoulders and slowly prop her up. “How are you feeling?”

Clarke felt too fragile to glare as meanly as she was used to, but she still gave it a good shot. “How do you think?”

Bellamy chuckled quietly. “Alright, dumb question. Here, take these and drink the whole thing.” 

He dropped a couple of capsules into her palm, along with a tall glass of water. Clarke swallowed them down, wincing as they passed through her sore throat, and made as if to lie back down. 

“Uh uh,” Bellamy muttered, and then he was unceremoniously scooping her into his arms. Clarke squeaked, clutching onto him tightly in surprise, but he didn’t seem particularly phased; he carried her as if she weighed nothing more than a laundry basket.

_Ugh. Damn him and his stupid upper body strength._

“Huh. That’s funny,” he said in a mock-thoughtful tone, voice rumbling through his chest from where her ear was pressed against it. Clarke attempted to resist the urge to snuggle into him; it was pretty difficult, considering her physically compromised state. “Most girls seem to have more of a positive reaction towards my, ah, ‘stupid upper body strength’.”

She could hear the grin in his voice, and swatted at him weakly with her hand. “Most girls don’t have to live with you and your dirty habits,” she grumbled, her head lolling against his shoulder.

Bellamy deposited her gently on her bed before tucking her in, drawing her blankets up around her and smoothing down the sheets. He carefully brushed tangled strands of hair away from her face (his hand was cool; it felt nice), and then – Clarke couldn’t be sure, having dozed off slightly at that point – but she thought he might have leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. Or had he? She vaguely recalled a circle of warmth branded on her hairline, but to be fair, she _was_ borderline delirious for the next two days. So it was entirely possible she’d dreamed it up.

Clarke usually hated being fussed and fretted over when she was sick. It was something which had caused many arguments with Abby in the past, who couldn’t understand that Clarke just wanted to be left alone to lick her wounds and recover in peace. But Bellamy had a way of taking care of her that didn’t _seem_ like he was doing much to help. It was almost kind of sneaky.

He’d pop into her room several times a day with a detailed message from Octavia or some useless update on the latest episode of _The Mount Weather Project_ , and leave random little presents in his wake: fruit salad or iced tea he’d whipped up earlier that day, a slim volume of short stories inspired by the heroines of Greek mythology that was apparently just lying around, pink and lilac hydrangeas to brighten up her room (“Don’t get too excited, princess. I just swiped them from the office, there’s flowers everywhere at the moment – I think some professor’s husband is trying to atone for his philandering ways.”)

On her third morning suffering the flu from hell, Clarke woke to find he’d left her a note, propped up against a new bottle of her favourite bubble bath mix. She’d been meaning to get a top up for weeks. 

_You smell terrible_ , read his scrawl. Bellamy’s handwriting reflected him perfectly – strong, slanting, intense, and a little all over the place. _Please remedy this immediately. B._

Clarke smiled, reaching out to open the bottle. The familiar scent of jasmine and mandarin wafted out, and she decided that just this once, it couldn’t hurt to follow his orders. 

Of course, by the next week it was all business as usual. Once Clarke was better, Bellamy was back to being his same old sarcastic self – leaving his mess everywhere, strutting around pointlessly shirtless and picking fights with her about the most inane things. 

Ah, well. It’d been nice while it lasted. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Bellamy's Masters thesis was adapted from some of the content [here](http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/weekly.html).  
> ** These Greek mythological figures were inspired by [this](http://elucipher.tumblr.com/post/106460361842/top-10-greek-myths) wonderful Tumblr response.
> 
> As always, kudos and especially comments are HIGHLY appreciated! Please let me know what you thought of this installment, your feedback helps me so much to stay motivated and keep writing faster :)
> 
> I'm [lydia-martin](http://lydia-martin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, feel free to drop by and say hello!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait folks, I've been away from home and have just settled back into work and it's all been a bit nuts! But hopefully the long chapter makes up for it.
> 
> Just one important note: this is the chapter that earns this fic its Mature rating. So if that's not your thing, you'll want to skip the end of this one!

Clarke comes home one night to find Finn Collins sitting casual as you please on the living room couch.

For a second, it’s as if her brain doesn’t process what she’s seeing. To be fair, she’s had the mother of bad days, and that’s putting it lightly. It’s been one terrible thing after another, all day long. She slipped in the shower that morning when she was still half asleep, earning herself a mightily impressive bruise on her hipbone that’s been aching ever since; completely bombed her Organic Chemistry test, which she studied every night for an entire week for; was the lucky recipient of a spilled coffee just before lunchtime, and all over her new top too (she’d had to steal an emergency singlet from O, who was an unfortunate two sizes smaller than her in the chest); and to top it all off, Abby had called on her walk home from campus, dropping not-so-subtle hints about her childhood best friend, Wells.

“Mom, for the last time,” Clarke had gritted out, attempting to shift her phone from one ear to the other while also stuffing her textbooks into her bag. “We’re just friends, okay? Always have been, always will be, but there’s nothing else to it. I’m fairly sure he’s dating someone at the moment anyway, so can you _please_ just drop it?”

Abby made a noise that seemed to convey disapproval and denial all at once. She and Thelonious had always had some creepy understanding that Wells and Clarke would grow up and one day fall madly in love, despite all evidence to the contrary – namely, the two friends in question loudly protesting the idea of their so-called inevitable union since the age of fourteen.

So all in all, Clarke was not feeling particularly well-disposed to receive visitors of any kind at the time. Let alone lying scumbag ex-boyfriends who’d screwed over not only her, but also one of her best friends.

“What,” she said, enunciating each word very clearly, “are you doing here?”

Finn had half-risen from the couch, looking nervously hopeful. His hair was styled differently to how he used to wear it, and he was wearing a t-shirt and blazer combination that looked both terrible and pretentious. Other than that, he looked exactly the same as he had when she’d last seen him over a year ago, and just the sight of his familiar face made her want to scream and be violently ill at the same time.

“Hey, Clarke,” he said, the smile fading from his face at her no-doubt murderous expression. “I was back in town for a few days and I just… wanted to say hi. See how you were.”

“I’m fan-fucking-tastic, thanks,” she said coolly, not moving from her position near the front door. “A heads-up would’ve been nice, don’t you think?”

Finn was starting to look increasingly uncomfortable. Clarke didn’t know what he’d expected – for her to light up like a Christmas tree and run joyfully into his arms? Fat chance of that. They hadn’t spoken since he’d transferred out of state in early sophomore year. She knew he and Raven were still in touch; he was practically Raven’s only family, after all, and the two of them had managed to piece together a tentative friendship after all the initial drama had died down.

But Clarke had made it very clear she had no interest in ever renewing ties, romantic, platonic or otherwise, so it certainly didn’t explain why he was currently standing in her living room.

And speaking of, how had he even gotten in?

“Hey, princess.”

Right on cue, Bellamy emerged from the bathroom. He’d clearly just had a shower and was shaking wet drops from his hair using a large towel, jeans slung low on his hips. While this was usually a distracting sight, Clarke felt like she had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

She and Finn had both turned at Bellamy’s entrance, and she found herself feeling rather absurdly pleased at Finn’s reaction to the nickname. He was staring at Bellamy, forehead furrowed, looking confused and vaguely irked. Never mind the fact that that had been her initial reaction to it, too; anything to piss Finn off right now was A-OK by her.

“So I’m guessing it was you who showed Finn in?” she asked with a sigh.

Bellamy frowned, pausing in his attentions to his hair and looking between the two of them. “Yeah, he said he was a friend of yours and Raven’s. Right?”

Clarke turned to level a glare at Finn, who looked unrepentant.

“Look, Clarke,” he said quickly, with the fatalistic air of someone running out of time, “I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t right turning up here like this but I just – wanted to see you and talk, see if maybe we could–”

“Nope,” Clarke said loudly, cutting across Finn’s monologue. “I really have no interest in doing that. Like I can think of pretty much anything else I would rather be doing, including retaking today’s Organic Chemistry test five times over, or being locked in a small room with my mom and Thelonious Jaha for ten hours straight. So yeah, thanks but no thanks.”

“Wait,” Bellamy interjected, eyes narrowing. “He’s not some friend of yours?”

Clarke rolled her eyes. She could feel, more than see, Bellamy doing that frowny macho tough guy thing he did sometimes, crossing his arms over his chest and practically shooting death rays out of his eyes and pretty much just looking all kinds of ridiculous. God, he was such a typical big brother.

“Calm down, Tarzan,” she said irritably. “I can handle it.”

Bellamy, miracle of miracles, shut up immediately, though his gaze remained firmly fixed on Finn. The other boy was staring right back at him, a line creasing his forehead in consternation. Finn's eyes weren't exactly narrowed, but they weren't a far cry from it either.

“Princess, huh?” he said, clearly striving to sound neutral and failing somewhat. “So is he your... what? Boyfriend?”

Clarke saw red. Mostly it was the hot flash of anger that shot through her at Finn's words, but there was a little embarrassment mixed up in there too. She knew her face had probably turned the colour of a ripe tomato, and refused to so much as look at Bellamy.

“That's none of your business,” she bit out, sending Finn a glare that could have felled an elephant. “You don't get to come barging unannounced into my apartment after a whole year and start prying into my personal life. Raven may have forgiven you for fucking us both over but I think you'll find I'm a whole lot better at holding a grudge than she is.”

A ringing silence met her words. Finn seemed momentarily speechless. Perhaps he'd thought that in the year that had elapsed, Clarke would have cooled off a little, even wished things had ended differently. If so, that was his mistake. He should've known her better than that.

She finally chanced a quick peripheral glance at Bellamy. Perhaps it was her imagination but he seemed to have moved closer without her noticing, his bulk a reassuring presence by her side. He was looking at Finn, his steadfast gaze radiating neither warmth nor hostility, but rather a curious alertness. His arms were still crossed and his stance was guarded, and Clarke had the sudden fleeting impression of a predatory animal lying patiently coiled in wait, ready to pounce at the nearest provocation.

She reluctantly turned her attention back to Finn. He seemed empty now, somehow; his verve had deserted him, and he looked upset. Once upon a time Clarke might have smoothed that furrow from his brow, kissed it better. But now she just felt tired looking at him, so very tired.

“I’d like it if you left, Finn,” she said quietly. Her voice was calm. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

There was a short pause, before Finn nodded. He looked as if he understood, though his eyes were tight with regret.

Bellamy followed him out, a frown still on his face, before shutting the door softly behind him and turning to look at Clarke.

“So,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. “You okay there?”

Clarke took a deep breath, her fist clenching around the keys still in her hand.

“I will be, in about ten minutes,” she said finally, looking up at Bellamy. “Put a shirt on, we’re going out.”

He looked puzzled, but headed towards his room without complaint. “Where are we going?”

“That trashy bar down the road. I need vodka. A _lot_ of vodka.”

 

* * *

 

An hour later, Clarke was drunk.

“So that’s why he’s not a friend,” she said, slurring very slightly. She’d just finished relaying the whole sad sorry affair to Bellamy, ordering one vodka, lime and soda after another as she spoke and slurping away like it was her lifeline. “Because he’s a two-timing asshole. And he made me be the other woman.”

Bellamy, who’d looked increasingly amused as the night wore on and Clarke’s drink tally shot up, sighed and touched her shoulder briefly.

“Figured it was something like that,” he said, voice low in contrast to the rising noise and chatter from the bar patrons around them. “That guy, though? Even without the cheating thing, god. You could do so much better, princess.”

“You think I don't know that now?” Clarke snapped, firing up suddenly.

Bellamy shifted back slightly, looking more surprised than offended by the intensity of her outburst. They’d been closer than she’d realised, heads bowed intimately toward each other. Something about his startled expression made her look away, sighing. There was a short silence as she sipped slowly on her drink, playing for time, before leaning forward to bury her face in her hands.

“It’s so fucking cliché,” Clarke said, voice muffled. “But I kind of secretly thought I’d… found it. I felt so lucky, you know? He wasn’t just some asshole. We were friends, we clicked on so many levels. I mean, it’s ridiculous to think about it now after everything he put me and Raven through, but… I really was in love with him.”

She lifted her head, propping it up on one hand, eyes half-lidded and sleepy. “Sounds so stupid, doesn’t it?” she murmured.

Bellamy’s voice was soft. “No. It doesn’t.”

Clarke shifted her head infinitesimally, only to meet his gaze head on. He was looking straight at her, brown eyes intent, his face inscrutable. She studied him right back, the alcohol making her feel loose and bold and electric, any self-consciousness she might usually have had in the moment gone. Her eyes roved freely over his face, taking in all those tiny details she’d filed away over the last few months. The curve of his jaw, that little dimple in his chin, the dip of his cupid's bow.

She drew him, sometimes. Just bits and pieces, nothing complete: side profiles, elegant fingers, the tousled curl of his hair in the morning. But she’d stopped lately. Something about it made her feel strange, thrilled and furtive all at once.

He was still watching her watching him, his gaze intensifying – and then his eyes dropped down to her mouth. Clarke caught her breath, so quickly it seemed to get trapped in her throat.

That was a dangerous look. This was a dangerous path to walk down.

There was a pregnant pause.

“I like your freckles,” she announced abruptly. It was the first thing that came to her head – anything to break the spell, to stop her from doing something foolish that she’d certainly regret come morning.

It worked like a charm. Bellamy blinked, looking distracted for a second, before relaxing into laughter. His gaze lowered slightly and he lifted an eyebrow, a wicked smile beginning to form on his lips.

“Thanks. I like your… top.”

Clarke looked down too, suddenly realising she was still wearing Octavia’s miniature singlet. In hindsight, she really should have changed before leaving the loft. But she’d had tunnel vision at the time, naturally, her Finn-induced agitation demanding the relief of alcohol right _now_.

Now O’s top was acting as a kind of accidental push-up bra, and the results were fairly eye-popping. Clarke’s assets never needed any help at the best of times; on the contrary, they tended to demand more of a push _down_ than a push up. If this was what she’d been bringing to the table all night, Clarke was surprised Bellamy had even managed to keep his eyes on her face for so long.

“Riiiight,” she said, drawing the word out in her best sarcastic fashion. “It’s the top you like, I’m sure.”

She expected him to leer exaggeratedly or flash her a lascivious look, but his smile just shifted; became warm and soft, his eyes bright with good humour. There it was, the real smile again, the one that had been making more and more frequent appearances lately.

Something about it knocked her for six. Her face flushed and she suddenly felt very warm, though the temperature in the bar hadn’t changed one bit.

“I think it’s maybe time you took me h- I mean, time we went home,” she said, working to keep her voice steady. “I seem to have filled up my vodka quota for the night.”

The moment disappeared. Now Bellamy’s smile was nothing but conscientious, that of the protector, the caregiver (the papa bear, as Octavia liked to say). He offered her a supportive arm as she manoeuvred herself off her stool, leaning slightly into his warm solid weight.

“Come on, princess,” he said, looking down at her with amusement as she stumbled a little and tried to right herself. “No doubt you'll be feeling this in the morning.”

He sounded fond, which was kind of weird. She was wasted and he’d had to listen to her whining about her ex for almost two hours – was that somehow his idea of a good time? Clarke had expected him to act grumpy and long-suffering all night, the way she in all honesty would have behaved if he’d wanted to rant to her about his love life, but he’d been a rather good sport about it all.

That was Bellamy Blake for you, Clarke thought sleepily as they exited the warm bar into the cool night air. His arm tightened around hers, and she burrowed into his side a little bit more.

Full of surprises, that one.

 

* * *

 

Abby, ever the gracious host, throws yet another party for her smarmy work colleagues and insists that her beautiful, smart, hard-working pre-med daughter makes an appearance. So Clarke puts on the dress and shoves her feet into the heels and does the small talk thing, hating every single second of it.

It didn’t used to be like this, her relationship with her mother. While they’d always tended to clash over important matters in Clarke’s life, the two of them used to be quite close – all three of them really, Clarke and her parents, the three musketeers.

But then Jake had his heart attack and, well.

It’s not like Clarke completely blames her mother for her father’s death. That would be unfair, she knows. And sometimes, when she lets herself dwell on it, she feels guilty for punishing Abby as much as she does, their every interaction still heavy with an undercurrent of tension.

But there’s no denying Jake had been under a lot of pressure at the time; working insane sixty-hour weeks, coming home constantly exhausted and drawn-looking, pushing himself beyond his limits to get that senior promotion. All because Abby had wanted the perfect life for them, or at the very least, the perfect appearance of one that she could show off like a shiny trophy: the engineer father and the politician mother and the doctor daughter. A nuclear family for the modern age.

The heart attack had come out of nowhere, or so it had seemed at the time. But looking back, Clarke could see how the dominoes had fallen. She’d never known that her father had been taking medication for work-induced stress and anxiety for months before he passed away; it was one of the many things that Abby had kept from her, under the pretext of protecting her. Even three years later, no matter how hard she tried, Clarke just couldn’t look at her mother the same way.

Abby, for her part, had remained stubbornly silent during this time, refusing to acknowledge the role her lofty ambitions had played in her husband’s fast-declining health. That, more than anything, was what Clarke could never forgive her mother for. If she’d just apologised in some small way, if she’d let herself be at all vulnerable – but no. Abby the stateswoman had a part to play, a smiling mask to show the world. She had no time for messy feelings, for long-buried familial misfortunes.

So they’d been playing a game of mental tug-of-war ever since, Abby constantly pushing, Clarke pulling away. But Clarke had learnt to play the dutiful daughter card when it was absolutely necessary; attending her mother’s prestigious work events, agreeing to fortnightly dinners at home or near campus, doing her best to be seen and not heard. After all, it was easier to suffer through an hour or two of tedium every now and then than to engage in the exhausting screaming matches they used to have. 

The party was, as predicted, completely and utterly dull, and that was even by Clarke’s low standards. Politics may have been all international intrigue and non-stop drama in the big leagues and on TV soaps, but the way Abby did it, it just seemed like a lot of forced politeness, overly enthusiastic laughter and bad schmoozing. Not to mention, clumsily concealed perving – she couldn’t count the number of times she’d been chit-chatting with some forty year old married male colleague of Abby’s, only to look up and find him with his eyes super-glued to her breasts. God, could the night get any more cliché?

Two hours was about her limit. She txted Raven and O around that mark, doing her best to sound amusingly overdramatic: “If you love me at all, even the tiniest bit, you’ll come get me out of here pronto and ply me with copious amounts of alcohol afterward.” Being the amazing friends they were, they arrived to pick her up a speedy half hour later.

Abby was frowning, blocking the doorway of Clarke’s bedroom, as her daughter collected her bag and prepared to leave.

“Sweetheart, it’s still early. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay longer? I think Marcus still wanted to talk to you about how your studies are going, he hasn’t seen you in a long time.”

Clarke barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “It’s pre-med, Mom – busy and stressful, as per usual. You can pass along the message, I’m sure.”

Abby sighed, her hand running along the string of tiny pearls at her neck. It was her tell; she always did that when she was upset. “Clarke, I just wish you would–”

“Bye, Mom,” Clarke interrupted, pausing only to kiss Abby swiftly on the cheek before squeezing past her into the hallway. “Enjoy the rest of the party, I’ll see you for dinner next week.”

She probably should have felt more obligated to stay, Clarke reflected, as she hurried down the driveway to where Raven’s Camaro was parked across the road. But at the end of the day, Abby wanted something Clarke couldn’t give her, and she was tired of twisting herself into knots over it.

“So how was the shindig?” O asked, turning around from the passenger seat as Clarke climbed into the car. “Booze, pills and prostitutes?”

“Of course,” Clarke answered, meeting Raven’s grin in the rear view mirror with one of her own. “Very _Wolf of Wall Street_.”

O chuckled. “Are we in the mood to blow off some steam, then?”

Clarke considered. It was Friday and she didn’t have any major assignments next week, the night (as Abby had helpfully pointed out) was still young, and if she was hungover tomorrow she could bully Bellamy into making those specialty blueberry pancakes of his that were even better than the ones at Grounders.

“Yes, we are,” she said decisively, settling back in her seat as Raven made a right turn. “But can we swing by the loft first? I need to change, this dress makes me look like a grandma.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything…” Raven said, her eyes glinting wickedly, but she broke off laughing when Clarke leaned forward to smack her affectionately on the head.

 

* * *

 

When they stopped by the loft, no-one was home. Bellamy was likely out with the boys, or perhaps bartending. Clarke shimmied into the tight red dress O and Raven had forced her into buying the other weekend (“you’ve got boobs, Clarke Griffin, and amazing ones at that! For once in your life, use them!”) while the other two turned on appropriate pre-gaming music and mixed a colourful variety of drinks in the kitchen.

They headed out to The Dropship that night, a bar turned nightclub near campus that played great music to dance to, but was unfortunately packed wall to wall with underclassmen. Luckily, being three hot girls, they didn’t have a problem finding spaces on the dance floor or at the bar when they needed to top up their drinks. Clarke was a sweaty mess by the end of the night, but it was worth it. She hadn’t had a good night out in ages, with her ever-increasing workload this year, and O and Raven were not only her best friends, but the kind of girlfriends who were always fun to go out with – endlessly energetic, hilarious dancers, and thankfully never once to be found bawling their eyes out in the bathroom after one too many G&Ts.

She got a taxi home that night, kissing the other two girls goodbye outside the bar and almost falling asleep in the backseat of her cab. It was late when she got into the loft and she hadn’t expected Bellamy to be up, so she was mildly surprised when she wandered into the kitchen to find him rummaging around in the fridge, wearing sweatpants and not much else.

“Hey, stranger,” she drawled slowly, before suppressing a wince. Had that been as seductive as it had sounded? But she’d been screaming along to Taylor Swift and Rihanna lyrics all night which had all but depleted her voice, so it was no wonder she sounded (unintentionally) husky.

If Bellamy noticed, he didn’t say anything; simply turned his head over his bare shoulder to smirk very slightly at her. “Cinderella back from the ball, huh?”

“Mm, something like that,” she murmured, propping herself against the kitchen counter for balance as she leaned down to slide off her heels.

When she straightened up, Bellamy was still looking at her, but he turned his head away when she caught his gaze.

“Want something to eat?”

At that, Clarke almost moaned. She had barely eaten anything all night, excepting a few canapés at the party, and though she’d been able to ignore it when she was dancing, her stomach was now growling painfully.

“That would be amazing,” she said, hopping onto the counter as Bellamy began to pile ingredients next to the stove. Clarke had always found something very soothing about watching him prepare and cook meals; not only was he good with food, but he had a kind of surety about his movements in the kitchen that was oddly appealing.

And sexy.

 _No_ , not sexy, Clarke backpedalled quickly. Not sexy at all, just… interesting.

She cleared her throat, casting about for a distraction from her troubling thoughts. “What are you making?

He sighed in mock-exasperation, his back to her as he started measuring something in a bowl. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that curiosity killed the cat?”

Clarke stuck her tongue out at him, taking childish delight in the fact that he couldn’t see her to retaliate. “Never thought you’d be one to pedal clichés, Blake.”

He laughed. “ _Blake?_ What are we, characters from Grease? Sorry, princess, it’s not quite gonna cut it.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, choosing not to reply. She figured that she’d probably only goad him into saying something even more irritating, as was her apparent forte.

A companionable silence fell, as Bellamy turned on the stove and continued pouring and stirring, and Clarke nursed a much-needed glass of ice cold water. She found herself idly admiring the strong curve of his back, the interplay of hard muscles and shoulder blades shifting constantly underneath that smooth tan skin as he navigated his way around the kitchen. It was mesmerising.

She must have fallen into a kind of wakeful doze, because the next thing Clarke knew, she’d startled into awareness when Bellamy turned around to place her meal and cutlery on her lap.

“Bon appetit.”

Clarke looked down at her plate. She could feel herself starting to smile, though she tried to hold it back.

“You made me pancakes? Blueberry pancakes?”

He eyed her, leaning against the counter next to her with his own stack in hand. “Yeah. You usually like them. What’s wrong with it now?”

Clarke shook her head, recalling what she’d been thinking in the car earlier that night, the smile still lingering on her face. “Nothing,” she said, starting to dig in without sparing him a second glance.

The pancakes were unbelievably delicious. Clarke practically inhaled her stack, the sugar and sustenance working to alleviate some of the fuzziness in her head. She should have remembered that drinking with O was always a dangerous exercise. The girl seemed to have no limits when it came to alcohol, and expected – demanded, really – that everyone else had the same tolerance.

She slid down from the counter to rinse her plate and put it in the dishwasher, leaning down to slot it into an available space before straightening back up – only to catch the tail end of Bellamy’s fleeting gaze once again.

Clarke frowned slightly, pausing to study him out of the corner of her eye for a second. Seriously, what was with all the staring?

_Is he...? No. Is he actually checking me out?_

The longer she looked at him, the more accurate it seemed. He was determinedly avoiding her gaze now, concentrating on finishing the last of his pancakes – and there was a faint pink flush rising steadily along his cheekbones.

It was _weird._ He was acting almost… bashful. It made Clarke feel strange. And powerful.

If this had been any other night, any other situation, there wasn’t any question as to what would have happened next. Sober Clarke would have mentally catalogued the sight to think about later (and maybe commit to paper with a 4B pencil and charcoal), quickly said thank you for the pancakes and goodnight, and exited stage right. Nothing to see here, folks, nope, no sirree.

Slightly Drunken Clarke was a entirely different story.

“Bellamy,” she said slowly. “Look at me.”

However awkward he might have been feeling (and that wasn’t usually a state of mind Clarke associated with Bellamy Blake), he was never one to back down from a direct challenge. He raised his head to meet her gaze, his eyes darker than she’d ever seen them.

She felt heat settle in her stomach, but chose to ignore it in favour of raising a sardonic eyebrow, a smirk curling the corner of her mouth. “Stare much?”

He paused before answering, seeming to choose his words carefully.

“Well. Let’s just say it’s an effective dress.”

His tone was casual, but the intensity in his eyes belied the off-handed comment. They had stilled, poised at opposite ends of the kitchen, both seeming to sense instinctively that the odd tension of the moment was gossamer-thin and just a breath from either could make it all disappear.

It mirrored a lot of other whisper-quiet moments they’d been sharing lately; sunny mornings and late nights when their eyes had caught and held, where one had inevitably looked away first and the other had had to suppress the following feeling of regret.

Clarke steeled herself. What was it going to be? Fight or flight?

She took a breath and moved a few steps forward, placing herself right in front of Bellamy. This close, she could feel the heat rising off of his bare skin onto hers. His eyes widened.

Once a fighter, always a fighter.

Clarke closed her eyes and rose up on her tiptoes, pressing her mouth to the sprinkling of freckles on his cheek that she’d been dying to touch for so long. His skin was smooth and very warm. She caught the top corner of his lips with hers, and felt them twitch very slightly.

She would’ve stayed there forever if she could have; the idea of seeing his reaction was terrifying and thrilling in equal measure. She waited an agonising two seconds before drawing back a little, her heart beating very fast.

The look on his face – dark, stunned, beyond aroused – struck her like a blow.

“You probably shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered, just before he tightened a strong forearm around her waist and then his lips descended on hers.

He tasted like blueberries and icing sugar. That was Clarke’s first thought. Something about the combination of that sweet taste and his hard mouth was unbelievably erotic. She pressed closer, bringing an arm up around his neck and arching against him to lick at that top lip hovering just out of reach, and he retaliated by canting his head and kissing her even more deeply, his tongue sliding wetly against hers. She felt a warm sinking sensation in her stomach as she resigned herself to the fact that this was going to be even better then she’d imagined, those few times late at night when she was on the brink of falling asleep and she’d let herself think about this. The way his lips might feel upon hers, how his hand would come up to cradle her jaw, how hard and solid his chest would be against her own.

The reality literally took her breath away – it felt a little like drowning, or at least, how Clarke had always imagined drowning to be like. She kept coming up for air and wanting to sink back into oblivion, over and over again. Every time he left her lips, pausing to trail hot open-mouthed kisses all up and down her neck and jaw, she was gasping, clutching him like a lifeline. She couldn’t imagine how people survived kissing like this. How was it possible not to just combust into flames on the spot?

And all he was doing was _kissing her_. This was just the appetiser, so to speak.

Though things were escalating quickly, if both of their wandering hands were anything to go by. Clarke was focused on memorising him by touch, mapping out his back, shoulders, chest with her greedy hands, that smooth skin quickly growing hotter under her exploration. Bellamy, for his part, was entirely responsible for Clarke’s growing boldness. His hands were tracing a teasing path from her arms to just under her breasts, along her torso and over her thighs, lingering briefly over her ass before starting all over again. It was driving her insane; she just wanted him to really _touch_ her, for fucks sake.

“Bellamy,” she panted, doing her best to sound as sternly annoyed as possible. It was a valiant effort, considering the present circumstances.

Bellamy chucked, shifting his mouth to do something with his tongue that should have been illegal. “Patience,” he breathed, and then his hands were sliding down to – oh, _yes_ – finally grab her ass and haul her against one of his hard thighs as he thrust up against her and oh god, _fuck_. Had foreplay always been this good? She honestly couldn’t remember, either because the last time had been too long ago or because it really _was_ just twenty times better with Bellamy than with any of her past lovers.

The latter was a rather terrifying thought. But she didn’t have the time or mental wherewithal to deal with it now.

Their bodies moved fluidly together as Bellamy continued to kiss his way down to her collarbone and Clarke grinded up against him, but she felt feverishly impatient. There were too many layers in the way, too many obstacles blocking her from what she needed. She disentangled herself slightly, ignoring Bellamy’s grunt of surprised protest, only to grab the bottom of her dress and tear it over her head.

“Wha–?”

The sight of her half-naked, lingerie-clad body seemed to cut him off abruptly, which Clarke was taking as a good sign. His jaw hadn’t quite dropped, but his expression was something else altogether; so tangible, she felt as if his gaze was physically touching her.

“Well?” she prompted, hands on hips and a sly smile licking at her lips. “Cat got your tongue?”

He growled – actually _growled_ – and pushed her against the kitchen island, swivelling her body so that the long hard line of him was suddenly pressed up against her back. She shuddered as he rocked against her ass, feeling heat pooling at her center.

“Fuck, princess,” he said in a low murmur, his mouth right against the delicate shell of her ear as he reached up to cup her breasts. “Do you have any idea how crazy these have been driving me since you moved in?”

She moaned, shaking her head. The words were soft and deliberately slow and his actions mirrored his casual manner, hands idly tracing her nipples through the thin fabric. Clarke could have wept; the friction just wasn't enough, and she whined, arching her body over the counter to try and get more leverage. She needed him to shut up and just get on with it, but she could have guessed he’d try to torture her. That was his usual M.O. in any of their interactions, after all.

In this particular one, though, the consequences were a little more dire. As in, Clarke was going to fully murder him if he didn’t get a move on sharpish.

Bellamy must have sensed her frustration nearing the end of its tether, because one hand finally dipped into the lace of her bra to pinch her nipple, hard. She hissed, writhing under his rough ministrations, and almost missed the trajectory of his other hand reaching down to press firmly against her sex, which felt almost painfully swollen with heat.

“God, you’re so wet,” he laughed, a note of wonder in his voice. He fingered the edge of her sodden panties, perhaps waiting for her say so, and when she issued a choked gasp he took that as his cue, sliding a finger in to tease leisurely at her slit before finally, finally thrusting the digit slowly inside her.

Raven had not been kidding; Bellamy was good with his hands. Fucking _fantastic_ with his hands, in Clarke’s opinion. She braced herself against the island for support and just tried to concentrate on not moaning too loudly, her hips undulating as Bellamy added a second finger, then a third, all expertly working in tandem to bring her over the edge. His left hand was still fondling at her breast, kneading and pinching at the hardening nipple, and he was peppering butterfly kisses up and along her neck and shoulder, one of her notoriously sensitive spots. In other words, he was hitting pretty much all her buttons (pun fully intended), and she didn’t know whether to be delighted or furious that he’d had her dialled so quickly.

The movement of his fingers grew faster, more frantic as she twisted desperately against him, both of them rocking against the counter and moaning in unison, until his thumb swiped decisively against her clit once, twice, three times and she came in a hot, blinding flash, gasping loudly as she rode out the waves of her orgasm. Bellamy kept working her over the edge, the friction causing Clarke to whimper from the combined pleasure and sensitivity, and withdrew his fingers only when she reached out a hand to wrap around his arm, still panting.

“Jesus fucking Christ, that was so hot,” he breathed against her ear, and Clarke had just about enough energy left to laugh weakly. She was feeling flushed all over, a little cramped from bending over the counter, but nowhere near fully sated. She could still feel how hot and hard he was against her ass, and she was already throbbing again at the thought of just pushing him down on his bed and climbing _all over him_ like a jungle gym.

She turned her head and raised her hand to shift his face down towards hers. Bellamy moved willingly to meet her as she softly kissed him, angling her head back slightly to trace the seam of his lips with her tongue.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Clarke whispered against his mouth, meeting his resulting groan with a smile and turning around fully to deepen the kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still new to writing ~hot and heavy~ scenes and I do find them somewhat difficult, so I'm hoping this did not disappoint. And I'm looking forward to getting your feedback on the chapter in general! This was a really fun one to write so would love love love to hear your thoughts.
> 
> Next chapter: a bit of fluff and a bit of angst. Remember, more comments = me writing faster! YAY!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovely readers, long time no see! How are you guys all coping after the finale, hmm?? Have you been replaying that Raign cover on repeat and crying your eyes out 8.5 times a day like me?! SO MUCH FUN.
> 
> It's all okay though because Modern!Bellarke is here to soothe the pain! So sorry for the delayed update but once again, it's a long one so I hope that makes up for it. Enjoy!

When Clarke stirred awake, it was nearly, but not quite, morning. If the glimpse of the slowly lightening dawn sky through the wooden blinds hadn’t given it away, the muffled silence that seemed to lay upon everything around her would have clued her in. It was quiet, but a warm comfortable quiet, the kind that always occurs for the briefest of moments every morning before the sun begins its ascent into the sky.  

She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what had roused her. To be honest, Clarke didn’t really feel fully awake anyway. Drowsiness still hung over her like a gauzy curtain, hazy and indistinct, and even without thinking about it she could feel the dull cloud of alcohol – part residual drunkenness, part advancing hangover – hovering in the back of her mind. She opened her eyes very slowly, attempting to adjust to what little light there was in the room.

She was lying on her side, blinking sleepily at Bellamy Blake.

He was awake, and perhaps had been for a while. Waking up to find anyone else looking at her would have creeped Clarke the fuck out, but for some reason it was different with Bellamy. She didn’t feel awkward or even surprised, which in itself was kind of surprising.

Their heads were very close to each other’s, side by side on their separate pillows. She met his gaze, gradually becoming aware of the weight of his arm thrown haphazardly over her waist, the tangled up position of their legs, the proximity of their bodies. It felt normal, really; as natural as bugging him about Dionysus or Persephone, as leaning against him for hours while they both read on the couch, as constantly snarking at each other in front of their exasperated friends, as _breathing_.

Neither of them said anything for a while. Again, it should have felt strange but didn’t. His eyes were very dark, flashing briefly in the dim light of the room. They could be cold, Clarke had once thought, but actually it was odd how warm they always made her feel, whether he was teasing or flattering or riling her up. Twin orbs exerting a gravitational pull as powerful as the moon, and now she found she couldn’t look away.

He was finally leaning toward her, shifting across the space between them with his lips a mere breath away, when she spoke.

“Did you kiss me?”

Her voice was soft, slightly hoarse. Clarke didn’t know where the question had come from. She was only half-awake and it had seemingly bubbled to the surface of its own volition, startling even her.

Bellamy moved his head back the tiniest amount, giving her a rather bemused look and managing to perfectly raise one eyebrow at the same time.

“Yes,” he said slowly, matching her low murmur. Something about the deepness of his voice, the way it seemed to rumble and resonate through her whole body, made her suppress a sudden shiver. “Several times, in a few different areas.”

His voice grew arch. “Would you like me to refresh your memory?”

Clarke laughed, but it came out more like a surprised gasp. “No, I mean – that time I was sick. When you carried me into my room and tucked me in.” She paused for a moment, her eyes fixed on the hard curve of his jaw, the strangely graceful delineation of his neck and collarbone. “Did you kiss me then? On the forehead?”

If Bellamy thought it was a bizarre question, he didn’t say anything, but it didn’t matter because she automatically felt foolish anyway. She was almost afraid to meet his eyes.

There was a short silence. When she finally found the courage to lift her gaze, Bellamy’s face was unreadable.

“Yes,” he said evenly. His tone gave away nothing but Clarke couldn’t stop herself from smiling at the response, weariness overtaking her and her eyes beginning to droop once more.

She missed the answering quirk of his lips, the softness that crept into his expression.

“Bellamy,” she murmured, making one last ditch attempt to speak before sleep stole her. “Thank you…”

“Thank you?”

“Thank you… for taking care of me.”

She sensed him moving, the warmth he exuded coming closer, but it was too late. Consciousness fell away, and she was once more adrift.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Clarke became aware of were the beams of light – bright, yet strangely muted. They played haphazardly on the inside of her eyelids, causing her to mumble and retreat under the blankets.

The second thing she became aware of was the weight and texture of those blankets. They felt different to her own bedding: heavier and a little less luxurious (with sleep being as precious to her as it was, Clarke was a thousand thread count kind of girl), and suffused with a familiar scent that teased at her senses. Warm, rich, tantalising… distinctly male.

Clarke stilled completely as the third thing became suddenly, alarmingly apparent.

 _She was lying in Bellamy’s bed_.

Memories of the previous night came rushing back in a flash flood, as if she’d pressed a button to release them. Her hands, his mouth, her dress, _the kitchen counter_. Waking up still half-drunk and asking him stupidly sentimental questions. Oh, fuck.

She squeaked, squeezing her eyes shut even more tightly in an attempt to ward off the play-by-play now gratuitously screening in her mind.

_Okay, so you had sex with your housemate. Your hot, snarky, infuriating serial-hook-up-artist housemate. This is fine, right? It’s fine. Totally, completely, 100% fine._

Clarke took a deep breath, reminded herself that she was a strong and independent woman who had nothing to be ashamed of, and moved to open her eyes, slowly and cautiously.

If she’d been freaking out about coming face to face with the aforementioned hot, snarky, infuriating serial-hook-up-artist housemate in the cold sober light of day, she had nothing to worry about. The room was, as she discovered by sneakily scanning what little she could see of the room from her vantage point lying down, noticeably Bellamy-less. Once Clarke had determined this, she dared to sit up and properly look around her.

The bed, and room in general, looked as rumpled as you’d expect after a night of furious sex. Clarke blushed, forgetting there was no-one around to see her, as she surveyed the swirling maelstrom of sheets and blankets heaped around her, the bra and lace panties Bellamy had practically ripped off of her the night before, the hastily shucked sweatpants he’d been wearing lying haphazardly tangled around them. 

Her gaze moved to the other side of the bed, where to her surprise, there was a note waiting for her on Bellamy’s pillow.

_Princess,_

_Had to get to the bar early and didn’t want to wake you up. I’ll see you later tonight._

_B._

Clarke frowned as she finished reading. The bar? Surely Bellamy’s shift wasn’t starting so early in the day? But then she remembered – he’d vaguely mentioned a few days ago that there was some big function on this weekend that he’d need to help the rest of the staff prep for.

She paused to study the scrawl of words on the piece of paper, tilting her head as she tried to gauge his state of mind from the brief missive. Was he feeling pleased about last night’s turn of events? Or regretful? Would things just be weird now? In classic Bellamy Blake style, the note revealed very little.

In any case, it sounded like he was going to be out all day. Clarke bit her lip. On one hand, this was probably ideal. She needed some time to process everything that had happened and figure out what the hell she was going to do when she saw him next. (Pouncing on him and re-enacting last’s night activities – seriously, where did he learn to do that thing with his tongue? – was a tempting option, but possibly not a very sensible one.)

On the other hand, just the thought of staying alone in the loft all day, vibrating with restless energy and surrounded by Bellamy’s books and clothes and _smell_ , conjured up an odd furore of jumbled up feelings (desire edged with panic, to be specific) that made her want to hyperventilate.

Clarke took a would-be calming breath and swung her legs off the bed. Staying put right now wasn’t an option.

She needed to get out, stat.

 

* * *

 

“Hey Raven, sorry to barge in but I really need to talk to yo– oh! _Oh._ Fuck! Sorry!”

Clarke slammed the door quickly behind her and stood there for a half second, staring blankly at nothing while she attempted to process what she’d just seen. She debated whether or not to turn tail and run but figured that that would be a fairly drastic (not to mention cowardly) thing to do, so settled for moving a safe distance away before leaning back against the wall and exhaling a deep breath.

_Holy shit. Did I really just see that?_

There was a loud thump from the other side of the wall, followed by a muffled shout and scuffling, then what sounded like quiet conversation noises before Raven’s door was being yanked open again. Clarke turned, arranging an expression of mingled guilt and contrition on her face, to find Raven, hair awry and with a blanket draped messily around her body, looking suitably flustered but nevertheless smiling brightly at her.

“Hey! Sorry for the, uh, eyeful you got there, that was probably a bit of a… shock,” Raven rambled distractedly, casting an eye back into her room where _someone_ was no doubt putting his pants back on. “I didn’t mean for you to see that. Well, obviously,” she added with a hasty laugh.

Clarke raised an eyebrow, trying and somewhat failing to hide the smile growing on her face. Who was this girl and what had she done with cool, calm and collected Raven Reyes? The Raven Reyes who could scorn hordes of boys with a single searing look and her wickedly sharp tongue? A fling was one thing, but this endearing nervousness Raven was exuding was another matter entirely. _God, she must really like this guy,_ Clarke thought, feeling a bolt of astonishment shoot through her.

The guy in question appeared in the doorway a second later, outfitted in rumpled clothes that had probably two minutes previously been lying abandoned on Raven’s bedroom floor. He looked sheepish but flashed Clarke a friendly smile, looking genuinely pleased to meet her. Clarke had to give him some credit; she didn’t know how polite _she_ would’ve been if some random stranger had charged in and interrupted her weekend morning playtime.

She was amused to note that Wick was as scruffy as Raven had described. And pretty cute, though not really Clarke’s type. She preferred boys with dark hair, and skin that was a little more tanned. And freckles…

_Fuuuuuuuck._

She quickly put a mental block on that line of thinking before it got too advanced, and made a concentrated effort to return to the present situation.

“Clarke, this is Kyle Wick. Wick, Clarke Griffin,” Raven was saying, sounding a little awkward but mostly happy. “Clarke’s one of my best friends. Wick is my… friend from the Mechanical Engineering department.”

Clarke didn’t miss the pause there, but pretended it hadn’t happened for Raven’s sake. “Hi,” she said, smiling back at Wick and holding out her hand. “It’s really nice to finally meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” he grinned, leaning forward to shake the offered hand. “Though to be honest, when I imagined meeting Raven’s friends for the first time I kind of thought I’d be wearing more clothes.” He laughed awkwardly.

Clarke laughed too, while Raven rolled her eyes and dug an elbow into Wick’s ribs. She could already see why Raven liked this one. He had a lovely genial air about him, warm expressive eyes and a fantastically cheeky grin, not to mention a pretty bangin’ bod – she’d gotten a good half second preview of the latter just before, after all.

Clarke just hadn’t expected Raven to like him so _much_ , or for her guard to be so lowered already. It was just obvious from how natural they were together, and Clarke hadn’t seen Raven have that kind of comfortable, well-worn chemistry with a boy in a long time – or ever, in all honesty. After all, they’d only become friends after they’d both kicked Finn to the curb.

She felt warmth bloom in her chest as she watched Raven reply snarkily to Wick’s comment, and Wick simply shake his head and make a funny face in response.

“Anyway,” Raven said, directing this next comment to Clarke and bringing her back to earth. “You said you needed to talk to me about something, right?” She trained her uncomfortably sharp gaze on Clarke, who felt the almost instant urge to start backing away slowly. “Wick’s heading home now so do you want to hang out and catch up?”

It sounded like just a suggestion, but Clarke knew Raven – it was nothing short of a command. She shook her head, already insisting that she’d rudely interrupted and would be completely happy to talk later, but Raven wasn’t letting her off the hook so easily.

“It’s fine, he’s going, he’s got shit to do anyway,” Raven said dismissively, already nudging Wick away from the bedroom and through the kitchen towards the front door. For someone who was half a head shorter than him, not to mention a lot more petite, she was certainly skilled at pushing Wick around. “Right?”

“Sure I do,” he said indulgently, giving her a smile that was equal parts fond and exasperated as they reached the foyer area. He stepped into his shoes and moved to open the door. “Bye Reyes, I’ll see you later. Clarke, great to meet you again.”

He bent down to kiss Raven on the cheek, who (Clarke was amused to see) was having none of it; she was practically shoving him out the door at this stage. Wick looked as if he was well used to this sort of behaviour by now, managing to give Clarke a quick wave and another cheeky grin before the door closed behind him.

“So?” Clarke launched in immediately, barely able to contain the excitement in her voice. “Wick?! Since when did you two start having _adult sleepovers_? You’ve been holding out on us!”

Raven shot her a repressing look, though it was slightly ruined by the fact that her eyes were sparkling with warmth.

“We are not talking about that right now,” she said, her smile making the words less stern than they were clearly supposed to be. “I’ll fill you in later, I promise, but you said you wanted to talk about something?”

Clarke hesitated. Now that she was actually here in her friend’s apartment, with Raven scrutinising her way too perceptively for her liking, she found herself suddenly at a loss for words. Was it really a good idea to talk to her about Bellamy? Or would it just make things awkward, especially considering Raven’s own history with him?

What she failed to realise was that by this point, she simply had no choice in the matter. Clarke turning up unannounced bright and early on a Sunday morning with a highly agitated air about her was unusual enough that Raven’s curiosity was piqued. She took advantage of Clarke’s momentary indecision to frog-march her into the lounge and push her down on the couch.

“Now don’t you dare go anywhere,” she instructed, giving Clarke the kind of look that promised serious bodily injury if she were to disobey. “I’m just going to put on some clothes so I’m not, like, practically naked for this conversation and then I’ll be right back. Okay?”

Clarke nodded, looking distracted.

Raven was as good as her word. Five minutes later she’d managed to get dressed, prop a steaming hot mug of coffee into Clarke’s hands and shove an assortment of snack foods on the coffee table in front of her. Clarke always got a serious case of the munchies in times of stress, which Raven knew well from their many study sessions in the library together over the years.

“So?” Raven pressed, finally plopping herself down on the couch beside Clarke and turning sideways to face her. “What’s the emergency?”

Clarke fidgeted with the edge of a cushion. “I kind of need some, uh, girl advice.”

Raven’s eyebrows rose a little. While she, Clarke and O were close and certainly tended to talk about boy-related issues whenever they popped up in passing conversation, it was rare that they sought each other out specifically for this sort of thing. Clarke in particular was so staunchly independent and level-headed when it came to affairs of the heart post-Finn that it was no wonder Raven was a little taken aback.

“Okay,” she said, sounding only mildly quizzical. “Hit me up, Doc. I’m here for whatever you need. Oh, but wait,” she paused, frowning, “should we call O for this as well?”

Raven looked around, already casting an eye about for her phone, but froze in surprise when Clarke let out a panicked yelp of “no!”

“I just mean,” Clarke said, recovering slightly, “I think I need to talk to you alone first.”

Now Raven was really intrigued. “Clarke, you’re starting to scare me,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Are you okay?”

Clarke laughed, shaking her head and sending her blonde curls flying. “Sorry, I know I’m being ridiculous,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’m fine, you don’t have to worry about me. I just did something last night that I… don’t know how to feel about. I think I need another perspective.”

Raven frowned. “Last night?” She eyed Clarke. “You were with us last night though.”

“Yeaaaah,” Clarke said slowly. “After that.”

“After that?” Raven looked even more confused. “Wait, you mean you went somewhere else when O and I went home?”

“No,” Clarke said, taking a deep breath. “I went home. And when I got home, Bellamy was there.”

“And when you got home, Bellamy was there…” Raven repeated, studying Clarke and noting the odd expression on her friend’s face. She looked nervous, and almost… guilty? But there was also this weird twinkle in her eyes, kind of like she’d–

 _Fuck!_ In a blinding flash, Raven got it. That was the look she saw in the mirror every morning after she and Wick had had a particularly, uh, good night.

“You fucked Bellamy?!” she exclaimed, so loudly Clarke jumped and then hurried to hit her with the cushion. “Are you _serious_?”

“Ssshhh!!” Clarke said desperately, looking around frantically as though she thought Raven’s neighbours might have their faces pressed up against the windows, agog. “God, scream it louder, why don’t you?”

Raven just looked at Clarke for a moment, her hands half raised over her mouth and her face slack with shock, and then did something Clarke didn’t expect.

She laughed.

She laughed so hard she almost fell off the couch and hit her head on the coffee table, an accident only just prevented by Clarke grumpily hauling Raven backward onto the cushions again.

“I don’t see how it’s so funny,” she muttered, sitting back and waiting impatiently for Raven’s fit of giggles to subside.

“Oh, of _course_ you don’t,” Raven gasped, her face still bright with mirth as she turned to face Clarke. “Come on Clarke, it was inevitable. With the way you two fight? Of course all you really wanted was to rip each other’s clothes off.”

Clarke flushed, feeling both angry and embarrassed. “Well, it’s news to me.”

Raven finally managed to contain herself, shooting Clarke an incredulous look.

“You really had no idea? I know us girls never talked about it, but.” She shrugged. “I mean, it’s totally understandable. You’re both single and gorgeous and you share the same group of friends and you see each other around the clock. I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”

She kept looking at Clarke, noticing that her friend looked rather more upset over the situation than she’d expected.

“Look, I’m sorry I laughed,” Raven said, more gently. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

Clarke sighed. “I just don’t really know what to do. This is going to make things super weird, right?”

Raven shrugged. “There’s definitely that potential,” she said, looking as if she was choosing her words carefully. “I think it just depends on how you both feel about it. How did you leave it this morning?

“He’s got a huge shift at the bar today, so he wasn’t even there when I woke up,” Clarke admitted. “And to be honest, I have no idea where his head is at.”

“And you?” Raven asked, her eyes shrewd. “Where is your head at?”

Clarke shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know… I mean. It was pretty great. But sex is just sex, right?”

“Sometimes,” Raven said slowly, wondering whether or not to say what was really on her mind. But Clarke was already steamrollering ahead.

“He’s O’s brother. And we’re housemates. We _live_ together,” she was muttering, almost more to herself than to Raven. “And I’d just rather… I think it would be easier… if maybe we just move past it. It is Bellamy, after all.” Her voice strengthened, and she looked up at Raven. “Knowing him, I’m probably just another notch on the bedpost.”

She gave a laugh that might have been convincingly casual to someone who didn’t know Clarke as well as Raven did. Raven waited a moment, before venturing her next words.

“Clarke,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if it’s crazy for me to say this, but… it would be okay if you had feelings for him. You could tell me, if you wanted to.”

Clarke opened her mouth, then closed it. She felt bewildered for a moment, her pulse speeding up, and then was suddenly, inexplicably furious. God, what a ridiculous idea. As if she had real, actual feelings for Bellamy Blake. Hell, she wanted to murder him half the time. So what if he was unfairly good-looking, had a body she wanted to memorise with her mouth and knew how to spin a (mythological) story or two? He was still a complete ass. And one night in bed together didn’t change that.

“Of course I don’t,” she finally spluttered, unable to get the words out fast enough. “Come on, Raven! I haven’t reached desperate levels of insanity yet. I’m just, just – sexually deprived. And I need you to help me figure out how I’m going to deal with this minor incident so it doesn’t blow up in my face and ruin our whole group dynamic. That’s it. _Capisce_?” She raised a playful eyebrow.

There was a thoughtful expression on Raven’s face that Clarke didn’t much like the look of, but to her relief, her friend finally relaxed and settled for shooting her a wry smile.

“Well, you can’t blame me for covering all the bases,” she said, rolling her eyes a little before fixing her gaze firmly on her friend. “But if you’re sure…?”

Clarke took a deep breath, then smiled back. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

 

* * *

 

Clarke spent most of the rest of the day lazing around at Raven’s, the two girls rehashing their respective nights of debauchery, eating possibly the entire contents of the pantry, and indulging in a couple of trashy rom-coms before Raven finally kicked Clarke out.

“I can’t believe I’ve had to physically push _two_ people out of my apartment today,” Raven said gleefully, as Clarke made to leave. “When did I get so popular?”

Clarke simply stuck her tongue out and waved goodbye as she disappeared into the elevator.

When she got home, she somehow knew without a doubt that Bellamy was back, though there were no visible signs of life. Was it ridiculous to think she could sense his presence? She was feeling unusually hyper alert, after all, so she supposed it wasn’t too much of a stretch.

Clarke closed the front door behind her and walked over to place her keys gently on the kitchen counter, before nervously moving to smooth her hair back – then scowling, and purposefully dropping her hand. What was she doing? Primping for Bellamy? Ugh. The sooner she shook off this weird nerve-wracking post-sex funk, the better.

He emerged from his bedroom just then, probably summoned by the sound of Clarke’s entrance. Upon catching his gaze, Clarke’s face immediately warmed. He looked the same as he always did, and yet.

_And yet… you’ve now seen every inch of that glorious body stark naked._

_Shut up, brain!_

While Clarke fought to subdue her inner monologue, Bellamy did what a normal person would do and greeted her.

“Hey princess,” he said, his voice calm and easy. He eyed her as she remained unmoving by the kitchen counter, a small smirk growing on his face. “You gonna stand there all day?”

Clarke cleared her throat and shook her head, laughing slightly. “No,” she said, finally unsticking her feet from the floor and venturing towards the lounge area where Bellamy was now reclining on the couch. Her heart was beating wildly and she felt like her whole body was blushing bright red. It was unbearable. She needed to do something.

“What did you do today?” Bellamy asked idly, at the precise same time that Clarke blurted out, “We should probably talk about last night.”

An inevitably awkward pause ensued. Clarke inwardly cringed at how cliché her words had sounded, but there was nothing for it. She needed to get through this before she imploded.

She’d paused just behind the armchair adjacent to the couch, feeling nervously hesitant to draw any closer to Bellamy while simultaneously denying that she felt that way. Bellamy, for his part, looked mild and unconcerned. The smile that had crossed his face seconds before when he’d spoken remained, though it seemed to have dimmed slightly. But perhaps that was just Clarke’s imagination.

“Okay,” he said serenely, putting aside the book he’d just picked up and leaning forward to brace his forearms against his thighs. His eyes seared into hers. “What do you want to talk about?”

There was no use in being wishy washy and coy about it. For the first time since she’d stepped into the loft, Clarke directed her gaze squarely at Bellamy.

“We had sex,” she said bluntly.

His lips quirked upward. “Yes, I remember.”

Clarke glared. “Bellamy! Stop it.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to be serious, you ass!”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. We had sex. It was amazing. And?”

Caught slightly off guard (though she didn’t know why – she knew it was amazing too, why wouldn’t he have admitted the same?), Clarke nevertheless forged onward. “And it was pretty stupid.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Stupid?”

“Yes, of course,” Clarke said impatiently. “Beyond stupid. I was drunk, and you’re, well, _you_ with the whole raging sex drive problem, and you made me blueberry pancakes and you were there being all smirky and annoyingly half-naked, so.” She stopped to draw a breath. “I just wanted to make sure that was clear.”

Bellamy looked a little amused but mostly unimpressed. “Make sure what was clear, exactly? Because I’m not sure I managed to make sense of any of that.”

Clarke sighed. “Look, we’re housemates. And even though you get on my last nerve all the time, I love the loft and I think we have a pretty good living arrangement here. And we’ve managed to, you know, mesh our friend groups really well. It just kind of works, doesn’t it? And this – thing,” she waved a hand to encompass the space between her and Bellamy, “this one time incident, would just complicate matters if we made a big deal out of it and everyone found out. So it’s probably best to just… get over it and chalk it up as a fluke.”

She stopped to hear Bellamy’s response, but when he said nothing, she added persistently, “Right?”

The whole time she’d been speaking, Clarke had been attempting to avoid looking straight at Bellamy, but now she finally forced herself to and – it was strange. In the last few months she’d grown used to seeing him open up a little more around her, somewhat shed the snarky sarcastic façade he wore like a second skin and reveal someone a little warmer and more, well, _real_ underneath.

But now it seemed she was back to square one, or possibly even worse than that. It was like looking at a blank slate. His face, the one she’d become so well accustomed to, the one that was now so familiar she knew it like the back of her hand, knew all its curves and angles and marks and tiny imprecisions, was like a stranger’s. His expression was neither warm nor cold; it gave away absolutely nothing.

“Bellamy?” she attempted.

At that, he shook his head just a little before looking up at her again, his mouth a sideways twist.

“No, of course. That makes sense.”

“Oh.” Clarke’s stomach bottomed out a little. She felt relieved, but also oddly light-headed. Perhaps it was the late effects of her hangover. “Okay. I’m glad you see it the way I do, I guess.” She gave him a small smile. “So… we’re good?

Bellamy nodded, moving to get up from the couch and pass swiftly by her. “Yeah. We’re good.”

He disappeared into his bedroom once again, leaving Clarke still standing there beside the armchair. She didn’t know why but she half-expected him to slam the door shut behind him. Instead, it closed with the softest of clicks and somehow, that alone made her feel worse than she had all day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't all hate me too much for that ending ;) And apologies for the lack of Bellamy in this chapter but it was a necessary evil. Don't worry, we've only got one more to go so everything will be resolved by then. OR WILL IT?????? Dun dun dun...
> 
> Remember, kudos and comments are EVERYTHING! Hearing what my readers thought is one of my favourite parts of fic-writing and it helps a lot in terms of motivation. I was so lost in my post-finale depression that I honestly wouldn't have been able to complete this chapter by now if you guys hadn't given me such wonderful helpful feedback.
> 
> You can also come find me on [my Tumblr](http://lydia-martin.tumblr.com) if you like!
> 
>  **[I M P O R T A N T]** Please please _please_ do not come to my Tumblr solely to ask me when the next chapter will be up. I apologise for taking so long to update but trust me, I'm chipping away at it and it's going to be a very lengthy conclusion so I'm taking my time. I love hearing feedback from my readers but just flat out asking me "when are you going to update?? It's been ages!" makes me very anxious and doesn't help at all in terms of motivation. It makes me happy to know you're enjoying the story but if I feel like you're rushing me it'll only take me longer to write, especially seeing as I'm juggling a lot in my real life at the moment. So I hope you can all respect that!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, at long last, here it is! The conclusion to the fic that I initially thought would be around 6-8k words in total... oh how YOUNG and FOOLISH I was hahaha. I know this chapter has taken me forever but I really do appreciate all the patience and support you've given me. It honestly means the world <333
> 
> Enjoy!!!

Things were… strange after that. And yet, not strange. 

Clarke couldn’t put her finger on it exactly. After the inevitable few days of semi-awkwardness – avoiding each other’s gazes, struggling to cover up lingering silences, skirting around each other in communal areas – their relationship seemed to settle back into the same old patterns. Clarke chewed Bellamy out for his messy habits, Bellamy deflected her reminders with infuriating smirks and teasing remarks, they fiercely debated the elimination results in each episode of _The Mount Weather Project_ and squabbled over who had finished the milk and not replaced it in the fridge (hint: not Clarke). It was all very normal.

But it also wasn’t.

Clarke didn’t know if she was just over-analysing the situation; it wouldn’t have been the first time. But some element of their relationship had subtly shifted since that night, and try as she might, she couldn’t get over the deep, guttural instinct that whatever it was had changed irrevocably. It was something to do with the way their conversations never wandered anymore, the way his gaze never seemed to meet hers but instead, almost look through her. It was the way her body felt on high alert now every time he was in the same room, so intensely attuned to his presence, or the way he would just pop up randomly in her thoughts even when she was concentrating on something wholly unrelated.

It was, above all, unsettling. And if there was one thing Clarke hated, it was feeling unsettled.

They didn’t even really fight as much any more, something which Jasper had pointed out with a puzzled grin one night when the gang were all drinking at the loft. 

“What’s happened to you two?” he’d joked, nudging Clarke in a friendly way as he helped her refill the snack bowls. “Last time I saw you guys I thought you were gonna go all Sid and Nancy on us, and now barely a peep out of you. Properly settled down now, huh?”

He nodded towards the lounge, where Bellamy was sitting on the couch having what looked like an in-depth conversation with Lincoln, while Octavia was practically sprawled across both their laps battling Miller in a particularly intense game of Mario Kart. Clarke could hear her shouts of “Fuck you and your fucking blue shells, you bastard!” interspersed with Miller’s snickering, while Raven and Monty enthusiastically egged them on in the background. 

Clarke turned back to Jasper, rolling her eyes as she filled his arms with bowls of lollies and potato chips and sent him on his way. “Mm, something like that.”

She watched him go, magnanimously distributing the new foodstuffs to the rest of their friends (who fell upon the replenishments with delighted cries), and had to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat. She’d made a point of not looking at Bellamy for the rest of that night.

That was the first time Clarke had realised just how much she actually enjoyed fighting with Bellamy. It sounded so stupid in hindsight – how many times had she complained about their rows to Raven and O? But the truth was there’d never been any vitriol in her feisty remarks or his snarky retorts. It had become a routine, a familiar game they’d both enjoyed playing more than anything. She’d taken that easy camaraderie for granted, barely noticed it for what it was, and only now it had disappeared from their relationship did she feel the loss so acutely. It gave her a cold, regretful kind of feeling in the pit of her stomach, one she tried actively to dismiss but that kept creeping back to bother her at the most inopportune of times. 

That alone would have been frustrating enough, but it was just the tip of the iceberg, really. Sleeping with Bellamy had unfortunately opened up a whole other can of worms for Clarke. It was now teeth-grindingly, grimace-makingly easy to see how and why he was so popular with girls. If his looks alone didn’t make the cut (and they most assuredly did), his prowess in the bedroom was more than satisfactory. After all, Bellamy wasn’t just a boy who promised; he was a man who delivered. Just reliving snatches of memories from that night was an exercise in sensory overload.

The odd and, quite frankly, irritating thing was that she honestly hadn’t felt like just another notch on the bedpost, as she’d so articulately phrased it to Raven. It had felt… it had been… well. Special, or something close to it. God, she felt ridiculous for even associating it with that word. But she didn’t know how else to explain it.

Clarke supposed that was just another reminder of Bellamy’s expertise, for lack of a better word; after all, she’d observed in the past that he was a master liar, both verbally and with his body language. But at the end of the day, she’d had to grudgingly admit to herself that it hadn’t been just sex, at least for her. He’d become her friend, and of course that was always going to complicate matters. He challenged her, supported her, understood her. He made her laugh more than anyone else she knew. He made her want to hit him on the head in equal measure, of course, but there was now a certain fondness in that instinct too.

As the weeks went by, she found it harder and harder to suppress the tumult of emotions that constantly flared into being whenever she found herself alone with him – which, what with the whole living together situation, was often. Meanwhile Bellamy – that bastard, she thought darkly and a little unfairly – had clearly moved on from the whole thing. While Clarke continued to stew in an increasingly potent mix of anger, confusion and arousal, Bellamy carried on with his day-to-day life looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

 

* * *

  

The day O found out was the same day Clarke began to truly realise the extent of her problem. 

It all started out normally enough. Clarke rushed out the door first thing in the morning after downing two coffees in quick succession, powered through her first three classes before shovelling down a sandwich from the café on campus, popped into the library to cram in a couple hours of intensive study, and then hauled ass to her last two afternoon classes before dragging her sorry self back home. Ah, the ever glamorous lifestyle of a third year pre-med.

The second Clarke let herself into the loft, Raven and O descended upon her like a couple of avenging angels.

“Finally, you’re home!” O said impatiently, herding a bewildered Clarke into her bedroom. “Took you long enough. Get dressed!”

Clarke, feeling both suspicious and confused, nevertheless allowed herself to be poked and prodded towards her wardrobe. “Where are we going this time?” she asked long-sufferingly, as O started flipping through her clothing and making little pursed-mouth faces at the options.

“Don’t sound so excited,” Raven deadpanned as she flopped down onto Clarke’s bed, an amused smile on her face. “There’s that open mic night thing at ARC tonight, remember? Monty and Jasper have entered themselves in and want us to go along for support.”

Clarke groaned, vaguely recalling the boys enthusiastically mentioning their “performance piece” the last time they saw each other. It wasn't that she didn’t want to be there for them; of course she did, she loved those two idiots to pieces. But it had been a long day and she was absolutely exhausted. The only thing she wanted to do right then was crawl into bed and watch crappy, mind-numbing TV for a couple of hours before passing out.

Something which O and Raven were well aware of, if the identical knowing glints in their eyes were anything to go by. Clarke opened her mouth and attempted to head them off at the pass, already knowing before she started speaking that it was futile.

“It’s been the longest day ever and my classes were hell, I’m so tired and you know how fond I am of Monty and Jasper and I’m sorry but I just really need to go to sleep,” she babbled frantically, barely knowing if she was making any sense.

She really must have sounded pathetic because instead of bullying her into submission the way they normally did, her friends simply laughed and moved over to give her a hug.

“Okay, we get it, Doctor Clarke needs her beauty sleep,” O said, grinning as she released Clarke from her embrace. “How about a compromise? We’ll leave you to have a nice long nap and then come pick you up for dinner in a couple hours. Then we can head to ARC to cheer on the boys and if you’re really _that_ tired, you can leave early.” She waggled an eyebrow at Raven, who nodded in agreement. “Thoughts?”

Clarke used to think she was a strong-willed and stubborn person, but of course that was before she became friends with the two girls standing before her. She sighed, figuring it was probably the best deal she was going to get. “Okay,” she said reluctantly.

Surprisingly, after the nap, a long hot shower and her billionth cup of coffee, Clarke actually felt like a functional human being again. She managed to assemble an outfit that was both comfortable and cute (black high-waisted jeans, a new collared crop top she hadn’t had the chance to wear yet and heeled ankle boots) and revived herself even further during dinner with the girls (Vietnamese at their local down the road).

It was when they arrived at ARC that Clarke’s trouble started.

The three of them were, predictably, the fashionably late ones; the boys looked like they might have already been there a while. They’d snagged a large table for the group in the packed-out bar and greeted them happily when they arrived, Monty and Jasper whooping loudly and bestowing them with enthusiastic hugs.

“Perfect timing, ladies!” Jasper exclaimed, almost accidentally concussing Miller (who was sitting next to him and who managed to duck in a remarkably timely fashion) as he threw his arms around Clarke. Raven and O settled themselves around the table, O pulling up a stool next to Lincoln and accepting a hello kiss while Raven and Monty enacted some complicated bro-type hand gesture. “We’re up next!”

Clarke looked over to the front of the room, where the stage which was usually reserved for musicians and bands now featured a lone girl with curly dark hair and olive skin. She looked a little younger than Clarke – maybe Jasper and Monty’s age – and was performing what appeared to be a stand up comedy act. It was going down well, if the cheers and raucous laughter issuing from the tables around them were any indication. Although, Clarke reflected wryly, it _was_ student night at all the bars around campus so it was possible everyone was already just really drunk.

“That’s Maya,” Jasper piped up, following Clarke’s line of sight. “She’s absolutely hilarious. I’ve, uh, watched her perform here a few times.”

“Have you now?” Clarke said, arching a suggestive eyebrow. “Turning into a bit of a groupie, Jas?”

Jasper shrugged, uncharacteristically shy. His ears were turning slightly pink. “Maybe a little,” he said, a smile creeping over his face. “We’ve talked once or twice before. She’s actually in one of my Psych classes.”

Clarke grinned. “Well go get ‘em, tiger,” she teased, giving Jasper a playful punch to the arm. “I’m going to try get drinks before you guys start but if you’re already on stage when I get back, good luck. You too, Monty!”

She gave Jasper a quick peck on the cheek before sliding off her stool and signalling to O and Raven that she was getting the first round. It was only when she was waiting in line, digging around in her purse for cash, that it occurred to her she hadn’t seen Bellamy at the table. Raven had mentioned Wick would be joining them later but the boys, who would have presumably reminded Bellamy about their event, hadn’t mentioned him at all.

 _Maybe he’s not coming_ , Clarke thought, trying to tamp down the sinking sense of disappointment. She knew he’d been helping one of the senior professors in the History department organise a huge research project lately, so maybe he hadn’t been able to take the night off. 

Having that thought firmly settled in her mind, Clarke got a minor shock when she reached the front of the bar and ordered her drinks, then let her gaze trail idly along the row of people on the other side of the counter until it reached none other than… Bellamy.

Bellamy, and a girl. 

He hadn’t noticed Clarke yet, which was understandable; it looked like he and the girl were having a fairly involved conversation. Pretty wasn’t quite the right word for her, Clarke decided, eyeing her with curiosity. “Striking” would be a more accurate description. With her wavy dark hair, almond-shaped eyes and defined cheekbones, she was stunning. But that wasn’t exactly unusual for Bellamy.

While waiting on her drinks, Clarke passed the time by discreetly studying the pair as they talked. She could tell that the girl was interested, but she was displaying it in that sleek, subtle way that made it obvious she was usually the one being chased, not doing the chasing.

Bellamy was a little harder to read. He seemed engaged enough, laughing warmly during their conversation and steadily holding the girl’s gaze as she spoke, but Clarke had the distinct impression he wasn’t as invested as he appeared to be.

Three vodka, lime and sodas were slammed down in front of her by the harassed-looking bartender, startling Clarke from her reverie. God, what was she even doing playing voyeur to something that was none of her business? Feeling irked with herself, Clarke paid up and swiftly transported the drinks back to the table, relieved to get away from the sight of Bellamy making yet another conquest. 

Monty and Jasper were already in full flow at this point, performing an intensely enunciated beat poetry piece that was alternately puzzling and hilarious. Clarke found her friends half giggling, half gawping as the boys took turns intoning their parts with oddly elaborate accompanying gestures, all the while maintaining sombre expressions. She settled into her seat and attempted to follow along, all the while reflecting with some amusement that the boys may or may not have had some form of herbal assistance with the inspiration for their piece. If the wide grin on Raven’s face and the meaningful look she shot Clarke was anything to go by, she was clearly on the same wavelength.

Wick had arrived and Jasper and Monty were in the last throes of their act by the time Bellamy re-joined their table. He stopped to give O a one-armed hug before taking his seat next to Miller, tilting his head in greeting with a surprised half-smile as he noticed Raven and Wick together. His gaze travelled quickly around the table, cataloguing all the new arrivals, before it landed on Clarke, who felt a slight frisson of connection when she caught his eye. She hadn’t realised she’d been watching him so intently.

Bellamy’s smile twisted into a small smirk as he raised an eyebrow at her. Clarke flushed slightly even as she rolled her eyes back, annoyed and embarrassed to have been caught staring. It was just Bellamy, after all, but… well. She didn’t know if he’d done something different with his hair – washed it, perhaps, she thought wryly – but it looked rather nice, dark curls askew but tidily so. He was wearing her favourite shirt of his as well, a pale green number she’d complimented him on in the past, with the sleeves casually rolled up past his forearms. The colour set off his tan perfectly, making the freckles dusting his cheeks seem even more noticeable than usual.

It occurred to her that he looked unfairly good. This bugged her more than it should have.

Abruptly Clarke cut her gaze, directing her attention back to the Monty and Jasper show just in time for their closing lines. The sound of clapping filled her ears and she joined in enthusiastically, their whole table hollering and stamping as the boys bounded off the stage and made their way back through the crowd, high-fiving a few people on the way (including an impressed Maya) and grinning ear to ear.

“Wow,” O said, looking momentarily lost for words and as if she was about to burst into hysterical laughter at the same time. “That was really… wow.” 

Raven snorted, while the rest of the boys snickered.

“Thanks!” Jasper and Monty chorused happily, seeming not the slightest bit perturbed at the quizzical and amused looks their friends were shooting each other.

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Monty added solemnly, the enigmatic twinkle in his eye belying his serious tone. “Now that’s done, anyone for drinks? Jas and I will get this round.”

There was a clamour of activity as half the table prepared to top up their beverages. Jasper and Monty has ostensibly been the last act of the night, as a live band had now taken their place on the stage. The next hour passed happily, with the non-stop banter of the group growing steadily louder and more ridiculous the more alcohol was consumed. Clarke ended up leaning her head sleepily against Monty’s shoulder as they talked to O and Wick. As it turned out, he and Monty knew each other and were already firm friends, having joined and led some of the activities for “some smarty pants Engineering club” together (in Jasper’s slightly slurred words).

At some point, Clarke looked up and noticed that there was a new addition to the table. Jasper had disappeared some time ago to find Maya, but the girl Bellamy had been talking to earlier at the bar had joined them and was currently merrily chatting away to Miller, Lincoln and Raven. Bellamy was at her side, lips quirked upward, seemingly watching over them approvingly like some sort of… some sort of…

 _Pathetic child showing off his new toy_ , Clarke thought scathingly, then was so shocked with herself that she stumbled a little, straightening up off Monty’s shoulder. It wasn’t just the vehemence of the thought that had (literally) tripped her up, although that in itself was surprising and uncalled for, but rather the intensely possessive tug in her gut that had accompanied it. She stared at the girl, at the way Bellamy was looking at her, and probed at the feeling that was only becoming blindingly apparent now that she was actively acknowledging it existed.

 _I’m actually_ jealous _._

 _Really fucking jealous._

The notion had her reeling back, head spinning. Clarke reached out to place her drink on the table, slapping it down perhaps a little more forcefully than was needed. She was oblivious to the way O’s attention had suddenly snapped toward her, eyes narrowing. 

“Hey, Monty,” Clarke said in a would-be casual voice. “Who’s Bellamy’s friend?”

He and Wick paused, mid-conversation, to both look across the table to where the rest of their friends were converged.

“Oh, that’s Echo,” Monty said, turning back to Clarke with a smile. “She’s pretty cool, we met her earlier tonight. I think she and Bellamy are f–”

“Ugh, please don’t finish that sentence,” O interjected, nibbling on her straw. “Sister alert, hello.” 

Monty laughed. “I was only going to say, I think she and Bellamy are friends _._ They met a couple weeks ago when he was bartending for some party she had at his work.”

“Looks like she wants to be a little more than friends, if you ask me,” Wick said, smirking.

“Well, who wouldn’t?” Monty replied. “Just look at the guy. He’s a regular dreamboat.”

Both boys chuckled heartily while O rolled her eyes.

“You’re both _hilarious_ ,” she said with heavy sarcasm, grinning nevertheless as she slipped off her stool and leaned forward to tug on Clarke’s arm. “I need a new drink. Wanna come with?”

Clarke, who’d barely processed the conversation and didn’t know how to respond to it in any case, simply nodded and followed Octavia to the bar. Once they’d been served their drinks, instead of making their way back to the table as Clarke had expected, O yanked on her elbow and drew her over the side of the counter where it was quieter.

“Right,” O said, all business, giving Clarke her best stern frown which was slightly less stern than usual considering her tipsy state. “What is it?”

Clarke gave her friend a confused glare. “What do you mean?”

“ _That_ ,” O said, pointing directly at Clarke’s face. “That expression that’s been on your face all night, every time you so much as look at my brother.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clarke hedged, sounding both defiant and cagey – always a tell-tale combination.

O’s stern frown intensified. “Don’t try to bullshit me, Clarke Griffin,” she declared. “I’m the sister of the Bullshit King himself so it simply can’t be done. Tell me what’s wrong.” 

Clarke sighed, fidgeting with the straw in her drink. She’d been agonising for weeks, trying to figure out the best way to tell O about That Night, but she hadn’t found a time or situation that was quite right – or at least, that was what she told herself. In truth, she was being cowardly. O deserved to know, and now was as good a time as any. She had alcohol in her hand and her other friends in close reach, so if O decided to get violent (the girl was highly unpredictable, after all) then at least help would be nearby.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” she started, taking a breath and finally meeting Octavia’s fierce gaze. “I’ve been wondering how to do so, but it’s been shitty of me to keep it from you. I just, um.”

_Say it now before you lose your nerve._

“I slept with Bellamy.”

She blurted it out in a rush and then paused immediately, waiting for the inevitable angry outburst or exclamation, but it never came. When she chanced another look at her friend, she was startled to find that O looked neither surprised nor upset. She looked, of all things, exasperated.

“I know, idiot,” O said, shaking her head slightly. “But I am glad you finally told me.”

Clarke’s mouth dropped open. “You’ve known? This… this whole time?”

O shrugged. “Of course.” 

“How did you find out?”

“Bellamy told me,” O said, her eyes sharp on Clarke’s face as she watched her absorb the words.

“ _Bellamy_ told you?” Clarke’s voice suddenly sounded odd to her own ears.

Well, it made sense. Bellamy and Octavia were closer than any siblings she’d ever met before, they told each other everything. Of course he wouldn’t have kept this from her.

But it made Clarke feel strange to think that he’d spoken about it with someone else. For some unfathomable reason she’d imagined that it was their secret alone, though that in itself was stupid considering she’d practically knocked Raven’s door down to tell her. Still, though…

“What did he say?” she asked, attempting to wrestle some semblance of control into her voice. “Did he… mention anything?”

The look on Octavia’s face made it clear she knew exactly what Clarke was trying to do. “He just said that you’d both decided to put it behind you,” she said neutrally.

Clarke wished O wasn’t eyeing her so keenly. She felt like her facial expressions weren’t quite cooperating with her at this point in time.

“But that’s not the whole story, is it?” O continued. “Is that why you’ve been acting so weird all night?”

Clarke, who didn’t feel like saying another word lest her mouth betray her also, simply nodded. The soft, understanding look on O’s face was too much; she suddenly felt bizarrely close to tears. _I’ve just had too much to drink, that’s all_ , she thought in an attempt to comfort herself.

“You don’t have to tell me about it right now if you don’t want to,” O said, moving forward to give Clarke a hug. Clarke hugged her back tightly, breathing in O’s lovely familiar perfume and resisting the urge to start sniffling pathetically. When they drew back, O gave her a kiss on the cheek. “But you know I’m always here for you, right? You can talk to me about anything. Even if it’s about my dumbass older brother.”

Clarke laughed. “I know,” she said. “And I love you for it. It’s just… I’m trying to figure some things out. But thank you for being so amazing. And I really am sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

O sighed dramatically. “God, the things I put up with.” She swung an arm around Clarke, balancing her drink in the other hand. “Come on, once I finish this drink I promise I’ll make Lincoln take us home so you can finally sleep.”

Clarke nodded gratefully, and just for one night, allowed her friend to take care of her.

 

* * *

 

The next weekend found Clarke, brain fuzzy from a day of hitting the textbooks and far too tired to consider making any kind of social plans, settled down on the couch in the living room on a rainy Saturday night, arm looped around an enormous bowl of popcorn as she waited for her movie to start. She’d been flicking idly through the channels half an hour earlier, hoping for something appropriately mindless to put her to sleep, when she’d noticed that Casablanca was programmed to play next after Citizen Kane on TCM. She hadn’t watched it in years – the first time had actually been with her father when she was twelve, she remembered with a pang – and something sad and nostalgic twisted in her stomach as she stared at those ten small letters on the screen. It wasn’t the generic laugh-out-loud comedy she’d been looking for, but now that she remembered how much her dad had loved it, and how painstakingly patient he’d been explaining the political aspects of the film to her, she felt like reliving those memories just for a few hours.

The front door opened then, startling her out of her reverie. Craning her head around instinctively, Clarke caught Bellamy’s eye as he let himself in and began to shrug his jacket off.

“Hey,” she said lightly, shooting him a small smile. She’d felt even more on edge around him since her talk with O the other night, but did her best not to let him see it. She wasn’t sure she was always convincing; while she considered herself a good actress, Bellamy had always had an annoying way of seeing right through her.

“Hi,” he replied, smiling back as he moved to grab an apple from the fruit bowl in the kitchen. He took his first bite as he asked, “Good day?”

Clarke blew out her breath in a large gust, leaning her head against the back of the cushion as she watched him make his way towards her. “Same as always. If I read the word ‘stereoisomer’ one more time, I’m going to shoot myself. How was yours?”

Bellamy chuckled, still crunching away on the apple as he came to a stop behind the couch. “Just got back from the office. The boys want to head out tonight, but…” He shrugged. “Not really in the mood.”

“Mm, same,” Clarke murmured. There was a small glistening drop of apple juice on the corner of Bellamy’s bottom lip that she was trying very hard not to look at. “What are you going to do instead?”

“Probably just catch up on one of my shows, maybe load up the new Avengers,” he said, only then seeming to notice the bowl of popcorn and the enormous blanket Clarke was swaddled up in. He eyed the screen, an odd look coming over his face when he recognised the opening scene. “Casablanca, huh?”

“Yeah,” Clarke said. “Have you seen it?”

Bellamy smirked. “Of course. It’s one of those films where the hype actually lives up to the reality.”

Clarke rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Bellamy the film snob strikes again.”

He laughed, taking another bite of his apple and retreating to the kitchen to deposit the core. “Well, enjoy the rewatch,” he said as he made his way to his bedroom.

Clarke didn’t know what possessed her to say it, but her mouth spoke before her brain realised what was happening. “You could watch it with me.”

Bellamy paused, on the threshold of his room. His head turned slightly toward her. “Yeah?” 

Clarke made an appropriately noncommittal gesture, though her heart rate had suddenly sped up. “Only if you want to. It’s just starting now, so you haven’t missed much.”

“Okay,” he said, ducking inside his room as he added, “Just give me a sec.”

Once Bellamy had returned and sank down beside her on the couch, leaving what Clarke thought was a rather polite amount of space still between them, she felt a shudder of – what? Nervousness? Fear? Suddenly, inviting him to watch a romantic drama that contained some fairly emotionally intense scenes, as she recalled, seemed downright idiotic. Things between them were weird enough without throwing Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman gazing longingly at each other into the mix.

Luckily, Casablanca had an involved and complex storyline that wasn’t all about the angst of the two lovers. Clarke quickly became absorbed in the action, passing the popcorn bowl between Bellamy and herself without taking her eyes off the screen, and he was ostensibly on the same wavelength if the companionable silence that fell between them was anything to go by. She’d almost managed to forget how good they were at this kind of thing – sharing each other’s space, studying or reading or watching anything together in peace, both of them so perfectly in tune without needing to say a word. 

Clarke bit her lip. These were not thoughts she needed to be having while getting cosy under a blanket with her former housemate and present… whatever.

On the television, Ilsa confronted Rick in his deserted café, eyes brimming with tears as she brandished a gun at him in desperation. Clarke watched, eyes purposefully fixed on the screen, as Rick moved forward to fold Ilsa into a loving embrace. She was very aware of the warmth of Bellamy’s body next to hers. Had they somehow shifted closer together on the couch over the course of the film?

“Mom loved this movie,” Bellamy said. His voice was quiet but the sudden sound of it was still a shock.

Clarke registered simply that he had spoken, before the meaning of the words sunk in. She turned her head to look at him. His eyes were still on the screen, flickering slightly, but she was certain that he was as focused on her as she was on him.

Bellamy never spoke about his mother. Everything she knew about her, this illusory, beloved figure in the lives of these two siblings she cared so much about, she’d heard from Octavia, and Octavia alone.

“Yeah?” she ventured, sensing the need to be just as quiet.

Bellamy nodded, a quick, sharp jerk of his head. “Yeah, she was a sucker for those old black and white movies. Roman Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday. She always forced me to watch them with her, starting when I was young enough not to protest. Somewhere along the way, I started liking them too.”

He levelled a sideways smile at her – it was small but genuine. Clarke smiled back.

“Couldn’t get O to join you, huh?” she teased gently.

Bellamy rolled his eyes. “As if anyone can make O do anything she doesn’t want to,” he said, sounding both affectionate and rueful. “She squirmed and fidgeted and complained enough that Mom always just told her she could go.” 

Clarke laughed as she imagined a young Octavia scampering away with a gleeful smile while Bellamy stayed behind by his mother’s side, the ever patient elder son. Her heart twisted a little.

“Dad loved Casablanca too,” she offered, a confession for a confession. “We’d always watch the sappy movies together, just the two of us.”

Bellamy smiled. “What about Abby?”

Clarke snorted softly. “My mom, watching romantic movies? Please. She doesn’t have a sentimental bone in her body.”

Bellamy tilted his head, surveying her. “Clarke,” he said, voice pitched low. It made a shiver crawl down her spine. “You’re so hard on her.”

Clarke was silent for a moment. She never liked talking about her relationship with her mother with anyone, not even herself. But that was the thing with Bellamy. He had this insidious power, whereupon he could seemingly slip into all these facets of her life and build himself a permanent home there without her even noticing until it was far too late. It all seemed rather unfair. 

“Yeah, I am,” she said finally. “It’s been that way for so long I almost don’t know any other way now.” She felt perilously close to tears, and worked hard to blink them back. “It’s as much my fault as it is hers. But sometimes when I look at her it feels like I can never bridge that gap again, you know?”

She didn’t feel brave enough to meet his gaze but did it anyway, eyes uncertain and hands trembling a little. Her heart was pounding, her body rebelling against the emotional equivalent of laying down her arms, holding her hands up in surrender and inviting attack. At once Clarke was struck by how similar she and Bellamy were, in their different ways; both still grieving so deeply for mothers long lost to them.

Bellamy’s dark brown gaze was as steady and sincere as she remembered, from those days when she used to look and look at him and never want to stop.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, so earnest it hurt. “And I’m not going to pretend I know everything about your relationship from before. But you did love her once, and you love her still, mad as you are. It doesn’t have to be everything all at once. Maybe you can just take it day by day. Start small, at least until it gets easier.” 

His eyes never left her face the whole time he spoke. Clarke was distantly aware of the sounds of dialogue from the film, Rick and Laszlo discussing Ilsa. Her throat felt tight. She nodded and made a not insignificant attempt to smile, to let Bellamy know it was okay. 

He looked relieved as he smiled back, eyes crinkling with warmth. They returned to the action onscreen, both agreeing without having to vocalise it that nothing else needed to be said on the subject.

The rest of the movie went quickly, wrapping everything up as Laszlo prepared for his escape. Clarke held her breath during her father’s favourite line, which to her slight surprise, Bellamy murmured along with Rick: “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

He only spoke again during the closing scenes, once Rick had seen Ilsa and Laszlo off on the plane to Lisbon. 

“She shouldn’t have gone with him,” Bellamy asserted, nodding at the screen. “I wouldn’t have, if I was her.”

Clarke shot him an incredulous look. She could feel a debate coming on; it all suddenly felt a lot more like their usual conversations. “Didn’t you hear what Rick said? He was right. She’d definitely have regretted it if she’d stayed.”

Bellamy shot her a look right back as he shifted his body towards her on the couch. “She’s still in love with him, more than she is with Laszlo. She already left Rick once and look how miserable it made the both of them. Now she’ll look back and spend the rest of her life thinking _what if_. That kind of regret is way worse.”

Clarke shook her head. “Yeah but in the end, they were making a sacrifice for Laszlo’s cause, for the greater good. Isn’t that more important than the happiness of just two people?” 

Bellamy made a grunting noise that seemed to acknowledge the logic of her statement while at the same time refusing to fully support it. “Well, the greater good can be hard to focus on when they’ve been intensely selling this one love story for a solid hour and a half,” he grumbled.

Clarke couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing, the sound bright and golden against the backdrop of the still rainy night. “Well, would you look at that,” she said, voice rich with affectionate amusement. “Bellamy Blake, incurable romantic. Who could’ve guessed?”

“Incurable is right,” he said lightly, fingers tapping out an idle tune against the back of the couch cushion Clarke was leaning against, and all at once everything fell quiet and Clarke registered what he’d said at the same time as she saw the look on his face.

They were sitting very close, much closer than they’d been at the beginning of the movie, bodies curved towards each other on the couch like sloping commas. He was so _present_ beside her, his arm a long line of warmth behind her on the cushion, wild dark curls vividly framing his face, his smile sending jolts of electricity through her.

They stared at each other for a long drawn out moment, oblivious to the blaring of the new movie’s opening credits and the sound of raindrops drumming on the roof. Clarke felt like there was a breath caught in her chest as her eyes traced his face, cataloguing every freckle she already knew by heart. This was the closest they’d been in weeks, and something about Bellamy’s expression made her think it wasn’t quite close enough.

The urge to move further into his space, to close the gap between them and feel his breath upon her lips, was almost painful to resist. Body thrumming like a live wire, caught in the darkness of his gaze, Clarke didn’t known whether to lean in or pull away. Unconsciously, she moved her head an infinitesimal inch towards his.

But Bellamy made the decision for her.

“Goodnight, princess,” he said, so softly it was possible she wouldn’t have heard it if her face wasn’t as close as it was.

It wasn’t anything as rude as a dismissal, but nonetheless, his words rang with obvious finality. Clarke blinked, not quite startled, as Bellamy watched her, waiting for her reaction. Already the distance between them, physical and otherwise, seemed to have doubled.

She took some time to gather her bearings before replying. “Night, Bellamy.”

He offered her a small smile before shifting away, getting up off the couch and depositing the popcorn bowl in the kitchen, then making his way to the bathroom. All the while Clarke sat there on the couch, face a little warmer than usual, feeling tense and wired and completely out of sorts.

It was only later, when she was finally climbing into bed, that she realised it was the first time Bellamy had called her princess since the night they’d slept together.

 

* * *

 

While they saw each other fairly regularly anyway, either with the boys or through surprise visits to each other’s apartments, Clarke, O and Raven still made a point of having bi-weekly catch ups with just the three of them. It was all a lot less official than it sounded, basically consisting of the girls gorging themselves on burgers near campus before retiring to ARC for a quiet drink or two on a weeknight.

The next time this occasion came around, O and Raven couldn’t help noticing that their friend seemed a lot less animated than usual, not to mention a lot more… distracted. 

“Hello?” O said for the third time, waving her hand in front of Clarke’s face. She’d been in the middle of telling an amusing story involving a highly intoxicated Lincoln and an uncompromising flight of stairs before spotting the furrowed brow and distant look on Clarke’s face, which always meant she was concentrating hard on something else. “Earth to Clarke? Anyone there?” 

Raven, for her part, was throwing cold fries in Clarke’s direction in an attempt to catch her attention. This only worked when one of the fries happened to land in Clarke’s nearly empty drink.

“Oh,” Clarke finally said, frowning a little as she zeroed in on the lonely fry now sinking to the bottom of her glass. “Sorry, O… you were saying something about Lincoln?” She shook her head slightly, as if to rid herself of whatever troubling thoughts she’d been dwelling on, before directing her gaze towards her friend with a small smile. “Keep going.”

O glared meaningfully at Clarke. “I will not. A) you already missed my hilarious punch line, and B) you’ve been totally out of it all night, don’t even try to deny it. What’s wrong? Is it study? Your mom?”

The look of concern on her face was mirrored on Raven’s, making it difficult for Clarke to try to wiggle out of this one with an excuse. It wasn’t that she liked keeping things from her best friends (on the contrary, really), but the problem was that speaking the words out loud would make it all too real. Clarke was a girl who liked order and organisation in all aspects of her life. She’d never been good at leaping into action without a solid back-up plan.

All of this was running through her head when her mouth suddenly decided to detach itself from her brain and opened to utter just one word: “Bellamy.”

At that, O and Raven’s faces both changed immediately. Clarke looked between them uncertainly for a moment, trying to figure out the meaning of their now rather peculiar expressions.

“Ah,” Raven said, her voice sounding carefully devoid of emotion. “Bellamy.”

Clarke kept looking between her and O, and then all at once it struck her.

They looked completely and utterly unsurprised. Expectant, even.

“You know, don’t you?” she said wearily.

“What, that you have feelings for him?” Raven remarked, somehow managing to munch hungrily on a fry and coolly raise an eyebrow at the same time. “Come on, Clarke. We’re your best friends. What do you take us for?”

Clarke didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh, and what came out ended up sounding like a hybrid of both. She leaned forward until her forehead was against the (probably hideously unclean) table top, her voice coming out rather muffled now as she spoke. “I’m such an idiot.”

O made a tsk-ing noise. “No, you’re not,” she said firmly. Clarke could just _hear_ her rolling her eyes in exasperation. “But you sure took your time coming around. We’ve been waiting for you to tell us for weeks, and instead you’ve just been doing the whole classic Clarke Griffin defence mechanism thing and bottling it all up inside. ”

Clarke turned her head slightly to glare at O with one eye. “Yeah, it’s one of my many talents apparently.” 

She raised her head and sat back in her seat, nibbling on her lower lip as she attempted to sort out her confused thoughts. “I just didn’t want to deal with the fallout, I guess. Because now I actually have to do something about this. It’s getting harder and harder to be normal around him but I don’t know how to broach the subject of moving out. I can’t think of an excuse that he wouldn’t see right through, stupid insightful bastard–”

“Okay, wait, hold up,” O interrupted Clarke’s furious muttering. “Uh, why are you suddenly talking about moving out?”

Now Clarke was the one raising an eyebrow. “O. Did you hear what I just said? I can’t function in that apartment any more. I can’t be around him with these _feelings_ , it’s driving me crazy. The last time I…” she stopped abruptly, and O and Raven both immediately thought of Finn, though neither of them said anything.

Clarke started again. “I just think it would be best for everyone if I don’t see him for a while. Then we can actually go back to being friends without all this weirdness between us.”

There was a short silence, before Raven offered a quiet suggestion.

“Well, have you thought about maybe just telling him?”

Clarke visibly balked at the idea. 

“That’s crazy,” she blustered. “After that night I pretty much told him it meant nothing. And he agreed with me. Plus, just look at how totally _fine_ he’s been since it happened! No stress, no jealousy issues, no random freak outs, nothing. Whereas I’m vibrating out of my skin every time he so much as looks at me.”

She was blushing as she said it, but in an aggravated way that made Raven think Clarke was going to do something drastic soon if they didn’t stop her, like smash all the glasses on their table or go home and punch Bellamy in the face for making her so miserable. Knowing Clarke, it wasn’t that far out of the realm of possibility.

Luckily, O managed to create a sufficiently significant distraction with her next words. 

“You know he’s in love with you, right?” she said idly. 

There was a pause, while Clarke simply blinked at her. And then–

“What?”

“Look,” O said, sighing impatiently. “I know you’re going to try really hard not to believe me. But Clarke, I know my brother. And he’s never gotten so worked up over a girl as he has with you.”

“Worked up?” Clarke repeated blankly. “You’re kidding, right?”

“He hides it well.” She levelled her gaze at Clarke, employing her most serious of Serious Stares to great effect. “But I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t 100% sure.” 

“Okay,” Clarke said slowly. “Then why haven’t you said anything about it until now?”

“Because,” O said, abruptly furious, “I didn’t want to get involved! I wanted you to get there on your own! But you idiots are taking so long to figure it out and making the rest of us so absolutely miserable in the process that _of course_ I have to step in and sort all your shit out. Like always.”

Clarke stared at O, mouth agape and utterly speechless, before turning to Raven. “Um?” 

Raven shrugged, still snacking on the last of the fries. “Yeah, what she said,” she offered, smirking with her mouth half full.

O sniffed. “God, you’re both useless. You owe me a big fat thank you some day.”

Clarke just sat there, processing. The thing was, now that everything was out in the open, O was never going to let her rest until she talked to Bellamy. And a life of being constantly hounded and harassed by a furious Octavia Blake was something Clarke definitely did not want to suffer through.

It looked like there was only one thing left to do, and by the looks on her friends’ faces, Clarke knew they had her beat.

“Good luck, Doc,” Raven said brightly, bestowing Clarke with a conspiratorial wink.

 

* * *

 

When Bellamy got home that night, Clarke was waiting for him on the couch, looking, he thought, unaccountably nervous. She stood up hastily when he walked in.

“Hey,” he said, giving her a quizzical smile as he took in her bizarre body language. She was… fidgeting? How odd.

“Hey,” she said, sounding a little distracted even as she returned his smile. She started to take a step forward, then seemed to think better of it, staying put and simply turning her body to face him as he made his way into the kitchen. “Uh, how’s it going?”

Bellamy surveyed Clarke with amusement as he went to get a glass of water. “Yeah, pretty good,” he said, unable to help slightly mimicking her exaggerated manner of speaking as he filled up his glass. “You okay there? You’re acting really weird.”

Clarke cleared her throat. Her heart was pounding like crazy. “Of course. It’s just, I need to talk to you about something. It’s kind of important.”

She said the last words in a rush, as if she needed to force herself to get them out. By the kitchen counter, Bellamy had paused as he took in what she’d said. The look on his face was once again shuttered, the blank mask that hid his feelings so well firmly in place.

But did they hide the feelings O had insisted they did? Or was he going to slither his way out of this conversation the way he did with anything serious, ever? 

Clarke took a deep breath.

“So you might remember that a little while ago, we, um, had a talk about what happened between us. And I said that I wanted everything to go back to the way it was. When we were just friends.”

Her hands were shaking by her sides. She hoped he hadn’t noticed. She wasn’t looking at him, but still she could feel his gaze trained on her face, her senses so heightened around him the way they always were these days. The way they had _always_ been, she thought, because she’d always been this affected by him, and somehow it was that small realisation that gave her the courage to keep going.

“We’re still friends now, I know. And that means, more than anything, that I owe it to you to be truthful.” She raised her head and met his gaze, mouth going dry from the shock of it, from feeling like he was looking at her so intently and seeing everything, everything she was and had been and would ever be. “I just wanted to say that I might have made a mistake. Because I think I’ve, you know, developed feelings for you. Of the romantic variety, I mean.”

Clarke swallowed, and now the instinct to continue talking, to babble endlessly and never have to listen for his reply and deal with the reality of maybe, probably, most definitely getting her heart stomped on and shattered into pieces _again_ was overwhelming. “And I know that if you don’t feel the same this is just… really fucking awkward and the thing is, you’re honestly one of my best friends and I know I’ve never told you that before but you are and I don’t want this to hang over us forever so I’m prepared to move out and just give us space and let it settle because I don’t want to ruin everything and most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier because I think in some way I’ve known this for maybe months and I just never let myself think it or process it or deal with it because I was so afraid, so.” 

She stopped all at once, running out of steam and silently cursing herself for saying way too much, for giving him so much ammo. Her face was burning now, scarlet with humiliation and anger and grief and a million other emotions bottled for too long and now shaken up inside of her, fizzing and spilling over the sides. She’d always been good with compartmentalisation; also denial. It was a killer combination when it came to self awareness, something which O and Raven, her best friends who knew her better than anyone else in the world, could have told her a long time ago if she’d ever bothered to ask.

And that was the thing. She’d picked up the pieces of herself after Finn had destroyed her, became a stronger, better person for it, looked in the mirror and felt proud of how far she’d come. She didn’t need anyone; had never needed anyone.

But needing was different to wanting. And, what she was finally ready to admit to herself was, she wanted Bellamy.

The only problem was that the person in question wasn’t saying anything.

Clarke held his gaze, fighting the urge to sink into the floor and never emerge again. To her surprise, her voice reemerged sounding deceptively calm. “This would probably be a good time to say something.”

Bellamy opened his mouth, then closed it, then abruptly strode over to where she was standing. His physical presence so immediately before her wreaked havoc on her nerve endings; he was closer than he’d been in weeks, months even, closer than that night on the couch, the closest he’d been since he’d touched her the last time, curled up intimately in bed with their arms and legs so hopelessly intertwined.

The thought of it, the memory, made her lose her breath. 

“The only thing I’m going to say,” he said quietly, as he reached up to cup her face and tilt her head gently upwards, “is that you’re an idiot, princess.”

Clarke only had time to utter a soft laugh, half surprise, half outrage, before he leaned down to slant his mouth against hers.

Had it been months since they’d done this the last time? Had she somehow survived without his lips on hers, his hands in her hair, the reassuring warmth of his body against his? There was something about kissing Bellamy that made everything hazy and indistinct but so sharply urgent at the same time. He kissed in a way that was so earnest it was frightening, no holds barred, everything he felt translated from his mouth to hers. It was pure emotion with no filter, and that was precisely what had scared her so much the last time.

Not this time, she vowed as she stood on her tiptoes to bring her arms around his neck and deepen the kiss.

They were both breathing heavily when they next separated, faces flushed, pupils blown, loaded gazes darting between each other’s mouths and eyes and chests. The air between them was thick with tension.

“So,” Clarke finally said, trying hard not to sound like she was panting or anything, “We’re good?”

Bellamy nodded, eyes more than a little intense. “We’re good.” 

Clarke cleared her throat. “Okay, uh, good.”

 _If either of us says ‘good’ one more time,_ she thought absently, eyeing the dent in his full lower lip, _I’m going to scream._

“But just so you know,” Bellamy added in a conversational tone, starting to yank his t-shirt over his head with one hand in a way that Clarke found mildly distracting, “I’ve been in love with you for like the last six months.”

O had said as much, but… well. It didn’t quite compare to the reality of Bellamy saying the words himself. She felt her cheeks fill with colour.

“Oh,” she said stupidly, staring at him, unable to tell whether she was more affected by the words or by his sudden shirtless state. Both were powerful, in their own ways.

“You know,” Bellamy said, and now there was a grin growing on his face that Clarke found hard to look at, beautifully brilliant as it was. “In case you were wondering.”

She was fighting her own smile as she responded. “Well, I appreciate the update,” she said, copying his casual manner as she pulled off her own top.

Bellamy’s gaze darkened even as his grin became fully-fledged, and he swiftly moved forward to close the gap between them and finally shut her up for good.

 

* * *

 

When Clarke woke up the next morning, Bellamy was lying down once again facing her, rather inexplicably holding her hand.

“Good morning,” he said, the timbre of his voice so low and intimate that it almost made her shy. His eyes caught hers and held, corners crinkled up with warmth, causing her heart to come alive in her chest. 

She raised a playful eyebrow. “I hope this whole ‘creepily staring at me when I wake up drooling’ thing isn’t going to become a habit,” she teased, squeezing his hand. “It’s enough to make a girl self-conscious.”

Bellamy’s smile widened, becoming slightly more like a smirk. “Ah, so you do remember,” he said, and she knew he was referring to the first time she’d woken up in his arms.

“Mm, hard to forget,” she murmured, casting her eyes down as a thought occurred to her. There was something she wanted to talk to Bellamy about but she wondered… perhaps was it too early to bring up in conversation? They’d only just told each other how they felt the night before, after all. Everything was still so new, uncharted territory so to speak. 

But surely, that was all the more reason to keep being honest with each other? 

“Bellamy,” Clarke began, a little hesitant.

“Hmm?” he responded idly, his hand tracing up the line of her arm. 

“We’re housemates. But we’re also… together. Right?”

There was a half second of nervousness and terror and breathless anticipation as she waited for his answer.

“Right,” Bellamy agreed, with not a hint of hesitation. Her thundering pulse settled somewhat.

“I was just thinking that if we’re… serious about this, you might end up having to get a new housemate at some point.” She locked eyes with him, willing him to understand. “Maybe, maybe not. But it’s just something to keep in mind, I guess. Would you be okay with that?”

Again she waited, heart in her throat, gaze fixed on his. 

His answering smile, when it came, was like the sun on her face.

“I’m counting on it, princess.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand that's all, folks!!! This was by far the hardest chapter to write, I really slaved over it (ergo why it took so long ugh), so I would love love LOVE you to bits if you left me a comment letting me know what you thought. Hopefully it was a satisfying conclusion?! I've never properly started and finished a chaptered fic before so your feedback would be beyond helpful if I decide to write one again :''')
> 
> Once again, I apologise for any Americanisms that are incorrect and also if I stuffed up anything to do with pre-med in this fic... I studied English, Media and Film in New Zealand so am woefully uninformed on pretty much anything to do with anything in this ~modern AU world~. Please forgive me. 
> 
> For those of you who haven't seen Casablanca, I hope you were able to follow along with Bellamy and Clarke's conversations around it. And for those who have, hopefully you find their attitudes and perspectives compliant with their canonical characterisations ;)
> 
> Lastly, I imagine the timeline of this fic happening over roughly eight months. Just in case anyone was wondering!
> 
> Thank you so so much for reading!!! Come find me on Tumblr if you like, I'm [lydia-martin](http://lydia-martin.tumblr.com). 
> 
> [waves and bows out gracefully]


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